Some people
don’t like
secondhand
but me I am,
a pre-loved man
this much I know
this hat I wear,
some people
they don’t understand
this thought I have
this pre-loved man
this hat I wear -
not all I am.

May
your roads
run straight
& your wheels
stay true
may you never
run late
with much
to do
may you step up
to the plate
from the back of the
queue
may you shoulder
all the weight
that bothers you.
You are nearer
than you know
to the fate
you always
knew.

We walked
around the art
today
and i forgot
to say
how proud
i have become
of you
we talked
about the lines
and chalk
debated
what was black
or not
and i forgot
to say
how proud
i have become
of you
we walked
around the art
today
remarked
about the role it plays
and i forgot to say
how proud
i am
of you
… and then came time
to travel on.

Remember when you took delight
in everything you ever did
the slightest thought a dream,
like pebbles splashing
in the stream.

Remember when you loved the night,
and music reached to where you hid,
standing out but in the team -
every day another
theme.

Remember then, now years take flight
from dragons and the tasks they bid,
with pull of age’s schemes
come slowing ways,
it seems.

You
are mine
as we
entwine
you know
the signs
as you
stay mine
as we
align
as we
resign
oh love
of mine
as we
combine.

Season long,
from shoots to shouts
to last parade then cut of spade
all mark season’s trade.
As light misleads, oh now I see
- means more to me than just
a change in nature’s song
these leaves - leave nothing gone,
sailing though their colours fade
hailing crowds with all they had or made
they urge me now to keep my trust,
nothing’s right, and nothing’s wrong
this circle never doubles,
these spirits never stray,
and in my heart
they stay.

Every child is a word
waiting to express itself.

On the horizon we
stand
gripping the rails,
honour fading like
sand
folding the sails.
Some might say we
cling
to the land
hearing the wails,
few of us will
understand,
fearing before
end,
all and each
in one command.
Feeling the nails,
earth’s reprimand -
Gaia, tipping scales -
against the firebrands
moving veils
beyond our hands,
and she demands,
we must not
fail.

A simple joke about Peace
through the eye of a fish,
trawling the factoids
in the place where you sit on chairs
onto your eye biscuits it floats
a knot in the Mystery Ribbon
at the system’s edge -
order your personal
Cosmos.

Om Unit, Spamdroid

please stop. thankyou.

Maybe my eyes,
they were not accustomed,
not tuned to the night into which they stared.
I watched but only glimpsed the imaginary sparkles,
the nothing definites - the blinks of stars through veils
tiny lost satellites unfurling their wings
like moths breathing the glow.
Did I see them? Or was it just rushing blood,
rushing by? It matters not, I will never know.
The night felt fine and that,
was good enough.

If history

repeats itself,

you might be willing underlings

perhaps, you’re already oiling the gears

again, keeping things simple inside

helping the mystery machines rise

as fate says serve their greasy whims

and metal hearts reside

in a forest of sublime possibility

new beasts hide in industry

and pistons turn again.

New society?

Sink or swim you will think -

Art and Science were never allies,

more like brothers breathing rust

spitting out the things

they used to trust -

Imagine chiaroscuro 
turned to dusk

and then a painter, 
counting dust,

gasp for air or gasp in awe,
the choice was never really yours,

you consume you are consumed

for consummation’s sake.
And on, creeps change

like a furnace glow

growing, seeping into night

then on to day - no collision -

here and now is all, just too slow,

and if history does indeed repeat itself

this is something we should know.
Do not assume that this,

was always thus.

Below the moon at Uffington
between the folds of chalkhill gown,
we sit beneath the White Horse stars,
watch flames and sing this song.

O’ Stars and embers dance your crown
as woodsmoke turns the hour’s dust,
and as we do these things we must,
this night it shall be ours

Above, see nervous lanterns rise
like strange birds from another time,
we wait below this all tonight,
and contemplate the flow.

Stars and embers dance your crown
as woodsmoke turns the hour’s dust,
and as we do these things we must,
we know, this night is ours.

Below the moon at Uffington
we sing beneath your ancient night
we contemplate the eventide
and tell of White Horse downs.

So stars and embers raise your crown,
as woodsmoke turns, the hours must -
we hold our simple truth to trust,
the night indeed is ours to own.

Now sit, and sing with us.

Either
it does,
or it doesn’t
What it says,
goes without question.
What it does -
now takes possession.
What it says, what it wants
what it knows,
this is all
it does.

Mice and men and lunatics
trying hard to do their thing
best intents within their skin
like clocks that click and clack
and loudly voiced they trickle back
like once upon a time ago
they must attend the helm,
so proudly rushed they go
their choices never realised
selling time to you and I -
enclosed and overwound,
but coiled and set to spin
towards, the sky.

What use am I?
against the flood,
against the very rise
of blood
what use am I?
against the sludge,
against these tides
that judge
what use am I?
This question,
shall be use
enough.

Oh you,
are the dance
I never learn
the chance
I always yearn.
You are, the grace
I never earn,
the trance
to which I turn,
and now, a starry, glowing urn
and I am flame within,
awaiting your
return.

It’s hard to introduce myself,
start a conversation about simple things,
learn the ways we can join hearts,
touch minds, swap smiles, be warm with each other.
All I want, is to roam those miles of your eyes,
be a good soul finding grace in your gaze,
reel the sparks dancing between glances,
draw in the gravity of who we might be.
But how, how will you even notice me?
Mouthing these, these tiny, silly words
too soon, too much, too late, no doubt -
and blood is rushing my intentions,
the world is spinning, twisting, whirling
and everything is blurring
into one.

You are that one.

Yes
you could deny
these slipping nights
but at your peril.
Counting stars does not
bring the sky any closer
and there is no meaning
in the inevitable,
You cannot slow this down.
Let it all go. Accept the flow.
Yes, you may be thinking about
the edge of the universe.
the end of knowing
but even here,
something
happens
next.

Surely you know
you can’t talk
to a stone
unless of course
you are the wind
and nothing changes
anything
unless you ask it to
confess its cause,
connect itself
to all you seek
so near the end
where whispers blow
upon the source
of contours slow
and what it is
you’re looking for.
Surely you know
you can’t talk
to a stone,
unless of course,
you are the wind,
then on you’ll wend
like hushes flown
like spirits thrown
like feelings shown
and on you’ll go,
my friend.

A single thought is not enough,
but thoughts together multiply.
I’m sorry that we forget this sometimes.
Love, is deeper than longing.

These are not waters to try to swim in,
these are waters to learn to swim in
These waters bring an undertow,
and push and flow we learn to know.

Again, begin.

Folding
like mountains
more than stone
jumping sunset
silvered Firth
chasing Oyster skies
to edge of Loch
and on to Glen
as shadows fade
I follow
them.

Last night
there was a poem
in my head
curled and laid,
thinking about the day
rolling around my bed
“Enough of rhyme”
this poem said;
think new ways
choose new words to say.
Awesome and tiresome -
closer than you think
the poem said
and last night
that omen
turning in my heart,
felt like
prey catching pray,
all bowed beneath
an old moon calling.
“Come now threads of sleep -
for I am caught”
the fleeing poem said.
≈

The mind
cannot be fully aware
unless it thinks about awareness
but what it learns when thinking this
alters the very way it perceives itself.
Therefore, I must conclude.
We are fools to think
we can ever be
fully aware.

We forget
the little tokens,
the tiny nuances
the real interactions
a nod, a wave, a smile.
Here, mere transaction -
click, clack and don’t come back.
It’s all pretend but you, you are real
and I thank you stranger
for taking this time
and here, now
I feel real
too.

“Edit out the Swans!”
low-moans the bass clarinet
too loud to move
the slider.

And down she went.

Edited.

“Too white,
I want more mood-
we have products to promote
without distraction,
edit out those Swans”

You knew didn’t you?
You made a bargain
back then.

And on she went,
like a fox chasing the coop
like bones crunching bone

“Pull down that moon
it spoils the view -
crop it and crop it,
cut it and paste it,
we must sell soon,
re-edit those Swans”

Edited.

Her overbearing pounce,
trampling motives -
scattered lost in flight,
the antonyms of you.
Hear this now;

“Let tweezers fall
forget your teaser’s call
do not regret this all.”

And tiny eyes mean tiny minds,
and tiny minds mean tiny lives,
and you don’t have to edit,
anymore.

He started life as a liar
pretending to know
pretending to be -
it was a game
and it was fun.
It was a shock
when he learned
people believed him,
and so, he began
to believe himself.

That was then.

Stabbed in the head and left for dead
the local paper said - that’s what I read -
a man without a bed, on and on he bled
and I am led to fear these roads we tread.

He was kicked in the gut - punch-drunk cut
no reason nothing but - just lowlife in a rut
like name-called sluts with doors tight shut -
we must ignore such brutish unkind strut.

But carved in the street and left for meat?
Where cold rats meet with no retreat,
this man you’d never greet, now stains on cold concrete,
and fear remains, beneath my feet.

He, was, sliced through his head
cleft and dead, Redtop newsprint screwed and fled -
DID YOU HEAR? what I just read?
This man without a bed, on and on, he bled
and I am led to dread these roads we tread.

Frankly I’m impressed
a book deal and induction
new-age world order
inviting him to intersect
with a Hendrix in the wirehex
and frankly I’m impressed.
No, really I’m impressed
the journeys on - inside and out
with difference from the rest
with leaving hive behind
with magic in his step
and all these things
I never guessed
and frankly, yes I am,
impressed.

Scribbling like inky flies
fallen onto barren sand
they are dribbling their grey ice now
draining to souls, pouring thoughts
from the dumb to the numb
and with blessings of the wise
their black milk flows
from the nipples of fools
to mouth-gasping shoals
they’re stealing succour of verse,
curdling the subtleties of words
shitting out their facile turds
and I watch them, circling like flies
turning truths to vacant lies.
It’s hard for me to recognise -
which one of them am I?

Tired
but not too bent -
that’s me.
I don’t want to be old
but I want to be wise,
Don’t care.
I’m creaking
like slowing oak
and sap goes sallow
on its way.
Now, I’m speaking
with a growing croak
but unbowed
and not bust -
at least I’m growing,
and thus,
I’m sneaking
into night
with slow moon rush
over ground and loam
to follow though,
to hush
to shallow breaths
of closing eventide.
I wander on
with feet of clay,
but part of me,
I leave today.

I like this living room you speak of
it reminds me of my own hippy upbringing.
Sundays, when the musicians came by
experimentation was on a grand scale.
and once, there was even a famous Dutchman
jamming with my dad grinning like a valley.
I was the young one who knew all the names -
cited influence of Harvest and Charisma artistes,
old heads seemed cool with the youngly wise.
That’s how it felt back then, in his music room
trying to stay in tune with Beardsley wallpaper
waiting by the paintings for his blue-smoke jazz.
I snuck the breath of adulthood before my time,
and now I send it back.

I predict
data vultures
circling
the bones of Nefertari,
preening
their wings
cleaning the digital grease
of things
I predict,
and though she danced
she now is bowed
like me
tension tight
tonight
I predict
a dimmed culture
all zero and one
averaged
drones of Neotime
stealing the memes
casting their net
sealing the seams
I predict
yet stay damned
and proud,
like a Cuneiform dynasty
teasing stones
magnetized and bright
this night
I predict
the signals lost,
the circuits bent
in wired fog
the snakes are calling
from carrion crave
and in their ways,
and in all they say.
I now rebel.

I was reminded to smile more
embrace embraces beyond doubt,
let natural ways be natural ways,
let chance be left to chance.
I was reminded to forget -
the where and when,
the who I may become.
You showed me, we are stones
weathering the way
holding on to the hill,
but rolling over time and ills
towards this place. together now
without pride nor answer
I am again reminded to smile,
once more.

blink blink
can’t write
tonight
and most nights
come to that.
and come to this;
this space
think think!
used up by things
blink blink
and it’s
gone.

Legs
like balistrades
smiles
to smash the barricades
bottle open lips
swaying like a parade.
on will and want hips
she strides
with her pendulum eyes
wide as miles
high as
cinders in the fire
throwing kisses
down the wire,
and I for one,
will never
tire.

Brother,
I’m so proud of you.
It was the stuff of legend
all them hearts stopping at once
so funny
and humbling too.
I saw you so,
natural.
holding court
with those strangers,
telling THAT joke.
Oh brother,
you fell
onto the payphone
and I snorted my beer.

You won’t remember me.

I was the one who knew
half your symmetry -
clutching emptiness
in all souls - felt like
connectivity
beyond old biologies.

You won’t thank me.

I took part of you,
made it part of me
rolled up your stories
your worlds of possibility
only later I found
they were all imaginary

I won’t regret.

I became something
we were not before -
remember? Bright embers
blown like pollen,
speckles in the galaxy,
dust in the galleries.

I won’t forget

You were the thing,
you started me
before tired eyes
before wary memories,
and now you remind me.
We were once electricty.

My shoes
feel good today
not like yesterday
softer more natural,
more me.

Yesterday,
my toes felt
pinched,
like they didn’t belong
truth had to be.

Got this feeling now.
I’m living, in the now -
without sum towards
one, and other suns
and maybe some.

Today I love
my shoes -
these are ones
I want to
keep!

I am the sigh

only lovers hear

listen

I am layers

stretched between indigo

see

I am scent

on powder wind

breathe

I am questions

longing, waiting -

answer

me.

Heads up
it’s a bad moon day
I woke up late
teeth like slate
must be all
the stress I ate
think I’ll choose
another fate
a bell was wrong
the clock was wrung
to zombie state
each crawling heart
and every beat
a guess
too late
and now I want
another gate,
heads up
six-thirty’s eight
and truths can’t wait
like chess piece bait
I want to leave
this course debate
my skin is stung
the locks stay strong
on habit’s hold
too late -
head’s up!
I’m fighting
but without hate
this bad moon day -
I’ll change
my way.

Below the ripple sway
polished dark like night
above, a silver stream
time lapsed rushing by
smooth, as melting ice
hello says the curling sky
pressed like frosted bacolite
in love? the elders dream
through moonlust eyes
and truth like sifted rice
so low, now winter days
relished not as if by right
a shove sleeved scream
rhyme hatched and rushing by
and proud as wish-tree ties
and still in awe of morning rise
am I.

Only on the edges of the edge
do you truly feel alive.
so said the brutish soul
grubbing through the mud and oil
spitting blood and drowning
low in anger flood.
sneering at the lonely stride
the boneless trudge
the spineless push
towards the vacant ledge
steps like aimless grudges bent
before a shameless judge
the honey thieves are out of breath,
and chicken sad with thoughts of death.
one push on and they’re all gone,
one turn back and everyone
survives.

It was a wise machine
that wound this ball of string
as tight as season rings
somewhere it started
and somewhere it ended
the whirl of things not right
nor wrong - just reasoning
wandering round and circling
like thrum of strands within threads
like clustered shards in filaments.
a universe of time
unquenchable, intense
untwisting, complex intent.
I understand.
We are entwined
beneath this endless, turning
firmament.

There’s a big thing I have to do
Can’t say too much but it’s time,
time to be a grown-up for awhile
if I hold my breath for long enough
everything might just be O.K
Tomorrow could be different
the toys of life could be in their trays
and I might learn about responsibility -
practice process before ways.
It’s very introspective of me isn’t it?
Thinking, thinking this might interest you
expecting you to understand this too
but I wanted you to know
there’s a big thing I have to do.

This is for you.
I know you can do it
stop worring about the loose stuff
whirling around the baggage
hold of your head
forget, forget
for - get!
yes, they’re all so … comfortable
yes, pretty their skin shines
but yes,
you can stop watching.
It’s all pretend -
just show me someone
who isn’t scared
deep down!
Take a photograph
frame the circumstance you see
print it in your mind and hold this
in your heart.
This is for you.

You snuck
water into wine
yet I tasted finest
merlot lipstain red
sipped like wasted sundays
spent in bed diluted thoughts
all with never minds
and mixed-up oughts
gone to hazy what the hells
drinking in some lazy things you said
I agreed
you took
the treble from the chimes
made me waste the wise
words and songs unsung
tuned down to lose the race
with touches plumed
from fluted noughts
old nature lost to dust
and yes it’s wrong to stifle bells
and hearing this your wragged scrape
I watched
you charm
the sleepers into life
unchaste and then declined
red dresses unto nervous creed
unzipped with patient haste
with sneaky lightning down
from threaded skies
teasing ground and then
goodbye.
For calm of dread
and dread of more than lies
for arms to lead me now
and leading me to finalise
I must conclude, you are the King
of compromise.

Quit the quiddities let’s just do it
we know what’s in our minds
circling like John Donne fleas
synchronous in hemal feed
midnight hands - whispers apart
like ticks and tocks but of stars
and between is sweet as breath
oh yes, we must breathe!
like never before, but again -
draw angels down from fables
quieten words and all they mean
read the libraries of our eyes instead
sighing like kittens woken too soon
listening to a pulsing moon.
Let’s do it, do it now
let’s get metaphysical.

I’m
just a bonsai
I change -
watch me grow
not too much
~edit~
but enough
s t r e t c h i n g ,
change shape -
~paste~
patient nurture
tend and care.
~cut~
reader
keep me
from
~paste~
brutish
hands.
~snip~

Bring on the trumpets
that’s what I heard
so she said to us stood
in the corridor like edges
each like a continent.
without joining,
we paused
we saw her smile
that’s what we saw.
saw the smile moving
spreading like a silk parachute
stretched below moonlight.
without moving
we applaud.
I thank no-one
who thinks I am no-one
but maybe she means more to me
more than just this memory,
flying a kite just got harder -
and who wants fists of twine?
Without thinking
I’ll move on.

It’s where
the weirdos go
so say the locals -
a hollow wedge on the hill
crammed with honey dancers -
James Joyce meeting Man Ray,
Kubrick speaking Rumi,
Australian vocal adventurers -
entertaining the freaks by proxy
and someone woke the weary out the back
smoking with the Russian
new modernists keep on with their delight
post-ale thinking around a book
or two or maybe more.
Time is inconvenient,
Ah. Nectar!

I stand,
on what I said.
Why do you
dig it up?

Skyward,
mouthing Swinetown wind -
raking moon above grey veins,
rattling battle pennant bones
above a once proud clan.
Like airborne spires -
these aspirations
held aloft but not
in vain,
like spines of hope
knowing that they can.
This glowing beast
it will tell, it will show.
Display the mysteries
all should know.
Brothers and sisters!
Imagine a luminous horse
tethered high above the land
I call on you,
support this
plan.

Apparently
you instinctively know
the right decision
ten minutes before
you make it.
What were you doing
ten minutes ago?
what was on your mind?
Was it inevitable
like a twisting bird
waiting to land?
You were
wondering weren’t you
and now,
you read poetry.
The answer,
is still
no.

Oh they wondered what the wind was for
scattering kernels upon dark floors
raising arms as fronds in breeze
calling troops of last frost seeds
rising now above their needs
they wonder -
have they sinned before?
shattered deeds perhaps, and maybe less
but more than the click of knees
cornered bent for scattered creed
locked and chasing seasons tease
and here now, hearing wind
feeling whispering, teasing,
wind.

Life is just exhausting but we must live it still
looking for redemption and a heart shaped pill
battered like a butterfly jumping window sills
life is just exhausting but we must live it still.

Life is just exhausting and yes, you live it still
like cracking walls you build but never quite fulfill
the choice is yours to make, you know you have free will
but sometimes feelings, are the very hardest skill.

Like
faces
in a tear
raggededy
rough
as they are
the racing car
lamps of your eyes
tracing, scratching lines
towards the inward
imaginings of selfish ‘I’
whirling in surprise
chasing those that hide
already cold as shudders
break, like new waves in ice
across the movers and the lies
doggedly tough
as they are
like trapped sky cries
wrapped in furrows and twine
there, sighting cloudline
blistered gaze
falling now
with bow and rise -
she’s a strange insect
flailing in a night jar
catching scent of moon
and twilight brings her soon -
tell your pacing heart
these pulses, these flashes
these little arcs of light
they, are just
the start.

Have you seen
the proof displaced
lost belief just wandering
streets, touched past touching
quantums, atoms, molecules
streams as we are lead
in vapours wake
he goes
singing; grapevine broke my heart
let this troubleman be calm
no god, no good nor bad - just him
in mild european air
Real Magic is given to so few
watch closely and know
divine souls find their divinity
in everyone.

I’m the voice
and not the song
I am the voice
now listen on
I’m the choice
and not the wrong
don’t you linger
like a tantrum son
I’m the voice
and not the song
I call you all
with mantra gong
I’m the wind
that batters on
no crown of singers
ambling gone
I’m the voice
and not the song
and now rejoice
I have this voice
and I am
strong.

I looked
to the funeral trees
and they looked dead like me
naked in this winter breeze
I turned
to the funeral trees
and they seemed black to see
wretched lost and born of thieves
I walked
to touch the funeral trees
and they stood firm in sombre creed
with sacred bond to spite the freeze
I fell
to lie among the funeral trees
and watched them change
and saw them grow
and soon I slept -
how gentle were
their pleas.
I dreamed
a hymn of funeral trees;
Come summer, come now please -
and time was then,
to unfurl
leaves.

This white flame burns
all bad things,
turns mourning into dust
moves morning into dusk
lingers long like lovers
after lust.
Between head and heart
ancient in my breast
there is a fire -
white glow burning
sending powder-ash
sad things tinder-piled
bad things turning
cinder riled.
White flame burns
and everything must go
even things I am scared to know
even thoughts I dare not show
and now I raise my weary hurting throw,
stack the ills of life and set them alight
on this, my white flame pyre.

And down came rusty stars
raising arms for all to shine
and low we dressed our frownfolk scars
chasing psalms and twisting twine (again)
with dreams but not quite ours
we carry ladders into night
pine the scent of cosmic wine
and then, we smoothly rise
like ancient sparks
like hilltop fire
and now, like cinder’s climb
inclined from pine to sky
we fly above
this awkward,
paradigm.

A man
needs a shed
takes the clutter
from his head
lays it down
on musty beds
tight against the edge
stained but only
partial red
a man
needs a shed
it takes away
his heart of lead
a place to dwell until
the world is pure
and nearly
bled
with creosote
and sodden pine
with scattered pins
on earthy weathered twine
all friends within
a secret place
to mine the mind
a space where men
have always fled
and every man
deserves
a shed.

It’s blank
this space
we occupy
scratching the void
we stare
in articling watch
we see
cold folding air
we share
time spilled sun
we thank grace
more than that
we are here
and we are there
and we fail
and we can feel
we almost care
this is blankness
after oneness
after selflessness
after all.

I know the way.
Every inch and mile
each turn and blur
every waypost sigh,
I know the way.
Yes, I do.
And I know you.
And we both know
it’s time to move.
Lay the landscape bare
unbutton roads -
each lane and every track
open to the journeys
never coming back.
I know the way.
Turn left, turn right
straight over keeping on.
We will have miles
beneath our wheels,
like every breath
that ever was -
like every glancing move
like each wilful lover lost
we will travel on.
I know the way
I really do -
don’t stop, don’t stop
until I say.

Destination.

Take me up and take me down
hold me still, spin me round
stretch me wide and fold me flat
roll me thin then mould me fat.

Lean me over, fly me high
make me laugh and make me cry
join the circuits, switch me on
you are all, and you is one.

Tell the tale then sing the song
push the bell, then drag along
make me crazy, make me sane
shake me lazy, wake me lain.

I am cleave and you are blade
I am just one in your parade
raise me higher than a stone
hold me tighter than the sun.

You are all, and you is one.

And the cells
in my eyes
are twitching
like flies
and the wells that
now rise
sink constructed
disguise
and the yells,
thin like ice
and the wails
and the lies
are you feeling like I?
can you bother
to try?
the cells
in your eyes
are twitching,
like flies.

I am
on a train and
fate is faster than I
sleek and slipstream sharp
like an arrow, twisting
through all I know now -
inevitable, like a silk flag
stretched and spread for miles -
my talisman, at once my target
sewn by fortune’s pins
worn to show a difference
untorn by my indifference
raised up for my deliverance.
And I, am on a train
again.

Just one
more friend
and I am done
and I’ll have more
than you
a compound me
just recently
and heard to say
how good it is
to have such friends
and I’ll be done
and I’ll have more
and I’ll thank all.
Just one more friend,
and they’ll be done -
just like
the other
ones.

Disregard all
you have been told
UFOs definately do not exist.
Not the T.V versions anyway,
you know - the extraterrestrial, cosmic yada variety
the advanced beings studying us. All lies.
Time travel transportation is what it’s really all about.
Ships carrying visitors to us from the future
maybe sinister, maybe sympathetic -
who knows, who cares apart from them …
but who, are ‘they’?
THEY are here screwing with the now,
tinkering with the cogs,
bending the levers
backward.
We have been led to believe in conspiracies
but the real conspiracy is what we’ve been led to believe.
What are they doing round here - poking about anyway?
Did one of us do something we shouldn’t have done?
Did one of us step on the bug of what happens next?
Maybe you (yes you) - thinking about changing the future
right now, maybe you changed it as a consequence
just by thinking the world needed fixing,
You created a new one and the old one died.
So our time is an open door.
Tell them! There is no mystery;
Travel from the future
but don’t change the past
and you’ll be welcome
now.

You
want
to fight
and I will not bite
and you argue all tonight -
know now I just will not bite
life is more than fight
flight from torpid shite
and understand
I will not bite
and therefore,
will not
write.

All these
things to do
these things to count
these things to throw away
to say, to shout, to laugh,
to argue all about
can’t we just write
these dumb things down?
all the breaths
we’re letting go
without regard
for things
we need to do
we can stop this
in its tracks
stop this waste
the time that spins
the moments
sparing dullness
all these worries
all these sighs
we should just agree -
write this stuff down
park tired things
but keep them safe.
We need
a list.

This one’s in the key of blue.
Fellas, are you with me too?
These words are going out for you
and this one’s in the key of blue

No long-necked bottles left to stand
no diamonds resting in the sand
know me, no you - you’ll understand
I’ve got the mic and a kick-ass band.

And this one’s in the key of blue.
The other keys? I know too few
and this is for the moody crew
that’s why it’s in the key of blue.

No happy end to what I’ve planned
no smiling fools at my command
just me and threads in which to stand
and mic in hand and kick-ass band.

So this one’s in the key of blue
yeah this one’s in the key of blue
these words are going out for you
hear me wailing, lonesome, true.

I am afraid
my wings are useless
can’t you see them flapping?
I am aimless.
For all your honeydew
I am toothless too,
maybe … maybe because
I carried on so shamelessly.
But nobody told me
I would become
quite so ruthless -
with tongue to stamen greed
gnawing, so furiously.
Dark pollen clings tight
to a truthless heart,
like blackfaced moths
clinging onto midnight.
And I am earthbound now -
for all your curiousity.
Just watch me,
shuffling,
on.

I remember Jack
he ruled my teenage years
and how I craved the highways
rolled out like three-week teletype
stretched to bedroom youth.

Next to Vonnegut he strode
offering a neckerchief
wailing on with Shearing
pulsing like a bright one
in Jazz firmament.

One minute I was a boy
then I learned of men
exploding like spiders
across stars.

We
only feel love
when we hate
the hateful things
we feel love
when we forget
forgetful things
we love,
when we know
the helpless
fateful
things.

At least he saw dolphins
spooling like silver thread
and they were blue reel wound
like circles of remembering
and this was the thing of things
amongst the coronation waves
patient souls hailed them
each moment pouring into one
an urgent gasp of flickers on
with granted rush to saltslap roar
with curve and arc of open heart
we saw dolphins and he saw them too
now diving down our spirits meet the bow
then play upon the wake.

You took the path
and I rode the motorway
in comfort got there quick
driven not by me
You shook the ashes
and I switched on the T.V
feet up late night squinter
sofa fugged and beat
You looked the way I did
and I looked back
creak neck creased
money almost spent
threadbare slack and given in
I once mistook you - I’m sorry.
Remind me how
I used to be.

No-one knew what was
beneath the sediment
bubbling something
like old grief under skin
Moonraker’s booty perhaps
or rusting truths
now wrestling with reeds
like matadors in mud
like foot trodden fate
like drakes and strutting loons
all telling secrets too.
They fished and fiddle-shook
slid on pondweed toes and turned -
lost waterboatmen,
now scuttling home.

I want to be an effect

but end up misaligned

I want your respect

but never quite arrive

it’s true

you get what you wish for

at least I think that’s what we’ll find

I just want to connect,

spark your atom mind.

feel kiss of whisperwind.

Oh god. Again,

I’ve ended up

contrived.

Been a while
since we spoke
of such things
peeling eyes
around thoughts
we circle
in whitespace
and voltrons
sometimes
we are stellar
sometimes
we are sand
and then
we are
gone.

This is where the rhythm is
this soft pushed bounce before the strokes
this snapping beat and accent too
inviting ghosts of crack and groove
and low my vantage swoops to dash.

This is air this rhythm fizz
this friction heat this hot-coal stoke
this movement out and pocket in
enticing hosts with smack and move
and slow my heated pulse is hatched.

This is prayer strong this rhythm is
this once hushed ounce now pounded smoke
this balanced rush to fevered few respect now due
these beats compounding rough with smooth
and now, a vintage Zildjian splash.

Now
you know
I know you know.
You know
I know
you know I know.
I know you
now.

We swam out and said come on in.
and so they did but where are we?
Still swimming, still dreaming, still?
The trouble I believe is ours not theirs
and now we must admit we do not know -
what shall we do? What happens next?
Let us follow on awhile and see.

Just for a moment I was a bird
and you were tiny beneath my wings
for a moment swooping circles high
with you below with wait for me to sing
for a moment I was untethered
and you stared at broken strings
for a moment I swear I soared
over reaches of all folk and kings
for a moment, just a moment
riding the joy of winds
you warned I might forget
such things.

We have these evenings here
sometimes crystalline blue
sometimes like silver
sometimes like blonde
in pepper light
and we scurry
and we scamper
until it feels
there is less
to heave.
Sometimes
these evenings -
sometimes, filmset bright
halogen staged for shadows’ reach
pure lit fingers swooping -
down from old moon sighs.
Sometimes this air resonates,
sometimes, like finest sinewave glass
shaking over sheep-bed green
these evenings hear the fears
sometimes they will appear
to anyone who waits
for evenings here.

Go where white horses lay
on green blanket down
hear young men tell tales
of old Marlborough town.

Run where country girls stay
we’re resting our heels
near riverbank’s bend
with spin in our reels.

Skip past bullrush and sway
where hill winds come
alive to our ways
in fields we roam,

And this, becomes our home.

what’s the difference
between a rock and a stone
thought the ant
pushing against purposes
like a dot - marking sentences
ordering the knots
like a fading spot satelite yacht
no brighter than a spore in the rot
between floors
between the walls
somewhere lies repentance
the ant thought -
not a lot.

Sort of maybe
chewing over things
crooked English teeth
tease chipped-tip flesh
I can’t resist
I bite the mouth
that feeds.
It comforts me -
peeling tender skin,
the kind within, beneath.
There is no rush
so I must desist
to bite this mouth
that feeds.

I watched you
just like you said
watched every twitch
every gesture
every shake
and yes - I could see -
see what you were thinking,
wanting, expecting
you were dipping your smile
down and to the left again
your singing mouth
briefly stilling;
a nod, a tilt,
a subtle slant
and I thought I knew.
O.K - I’ll admit
I looked away -
lost my track
but only then
I felt.
You,
watching
me.

This is a slippery slope
no roots or shoots to grope
no emergency rope and on
the face of it there is so little hope
that’s what I see
through this narrow periscope
now, I’ll shut my stupid trap
and cope.

this stuff we’ve been breathing in
same old, same old back and forth
tired molecules dragging feet
enough! - we’ve been here before
don’t suck and take this all for granted
I think we’ve forgotton the difference
between a scent and a stink
this huff our chests now heave -
moans of mild irritation or worse
so stale is our brightness of intent
and gone the whistle of being alive
even vibrations we don’t feel
look - it’s as clear as day outside
there’s a million miles of wind
and the sky has invited us
why not run the hill and turn
blow murmerstone and undertow
we should be rolling like rounded chalk
down hillforts and lazy tracks
where whispers never still
letting cracking groans and pleas
be rough vapors blasted free
and to nature’s tether, heaving in
gently calling sighs to laughing breeze
together sharing what we all share
no room for dried up truths
we now must leave -
we need more air.

It’s just a word,
that’s all it is.
Not so very different to
the others.
In fact, there are
171,476 choices
we could also
make.
Just another word
amongst the multitude,
that’s all it is -
just a word
and we’re struggling now
holding tweezers
over dirt.
It’s just a
word,
It’s just a word.
It’s just a stupid
word
We are too
ashamed
to say.

Here come
the Hammermen
a-bang a-bang a-boom
with metal wails
and woodsmoke clan
here they come
working thru midnite again
pulsing sons
in echoplex halls -
all alleycat wails
with the sense of shadows
beckoning lotharios
with purple moan
of mannish boys.
Oh hear them call
publicans of England!
Hear now these
Hammermen;
a-bang a-bang
a-boom.

i am full
swagger swelling
bloated even
and i am vain
and i am pumped
balloon edged modesty
moon-faced travesty
spoon ace
mastery
think
the fullest thing
a womb maybe
dam water lees
and log jam
milk shake
wheeze
think now
a dust world bus
stretched like a saddlebag
but not like us
like uterine kin
fit to burst
like sunset
rust
and now
the highways
midnight bound
and i am full.
it’s pictures
in your mind
i see
just think
when you read
me.

Words
are warriors
let them ride
over mountain’s teeth
let them climb
let them leap
like ghosts over the dunes
over sands and traditions
raised against ignorants
peeling skin of sycophants
mouth breathing falsehoods
with dead machines
only numbers describe
but never heal.
Words are warriors
let them run
between fallen honours
let them charge
let them roar
loud amidst the halfwits
with their door sniggering
doomed meat stares
never seeing stars.
Let them loose
among the dumb and damned
let them out
let them free -
speak to the idiots
line dancing in blood.
Shred ropes of shock and awe
before ask and lust for more.
Dead must be hypocrasy
and words must fight.
Now stop the war.

It feels like
you are nudging me,
pushing subtly
on a hotpan pepper
not quite cooked
and always,
I am terracotta red
swirling into
white.
It feels like,
you are touching me,
cells whirling -
twisting vapors again
like old-hooked pike
and always,
I am led
though kissing nil
but night.
It feels like,
you are tempting me,
feintly waiting
like un-lined paper
parchment smooth
but always,
I am ink and splatter
squirming into
spite.

He used to be an artist,
wanted to make gargoyles -
fashion them in modern ways.
Follow a plastic arts take
on the stone carver’s tradition.
He sought new monsters of narrative
like the snarling beasts of his time;
Ditko grins, sci-fi and circus freaks,
with Picasso’s garish push and pull.
He wanted positive repulsion
He reasoned we should all update
our ancients and their fears,
into a new, more relevant folksonomy.
His tutors questioned the concept,
didn’t get this new idea of his,
wanted to know why he was
being so post-modern.
He carried on.
Chalk walls became Photostats,
papers became scribbled and screwed,
iconography became stolen.
He built a temple to the strange
watched his reputation as an odd one grow.
Did not deny the darkness of his intent,
posessed, but ready.
His barbarians were simply made;
Two pinched-clay spitjoined bowls,
with brows and crooked nose bones,
puffy cheeks, lips and pointed chins
and ears, and crinkled skin.
Oh, and eyes like nemesis owls,
tenderly manipulated.
(just an afterthought).
You are no doubt aware.
“Clay is a fine-grained aggregate
of hydrous silicate particles”.
Difficult to train for most.
But this day, him and clay talked.
A conversation about creation and death,
about tenderness and fire,
about matching energies.
Him and clay reached an understanding.
He, had spoken of humanity’s climb
from the void, and the clay told how
to return to the underworld.
With stroke and roll and squeeze then,
the rebel earth accepted him
and something new, something
never real, never before.
What pleasure that day,
his strange day of ogres.
Who was the demon? Himself?
Or every dastard
now under his command?
Spitefully lain on an old wooden tray,
calling shock unto their saggy eyes
screeching woes to the worried.
So quickly he painted them -
coloured slips the tone and hue
like comic book inkings.
Colours shouldn’t show
until kiln-fired.
But he saw - he saw! he knew!
And he was ecstatic.
Oh how marvelous this had been -
just, perfect - like dreams made real
and grinning back at him.
It seemed, his mastery was complete,
but … something still read wrong.
The threads of this success,
torn by these ugly children of his,
but not monstrous anymore.
He liked them and it showed.
Too clever, too nice,
too crafted.
So he made a decision.
“Kill your babies” a writer said.
Well his, were fifteen dead puppies
raining down and squishing onto tarmac
That’s how they looked
when he threw them in the air -
and he watched them collapse
like giant lumps of splattering puke.
And he heard them too
wailing, wheezing - whistling out
through splits and fearful holes.
Gnarled and twisted, wrecked,
distorted, ruined.
But then he saw the beautiful. Yes!
Not his beauty, but a bludgeoned beauty,
grotesque beauty - rare and barely recognisable beauty.
Scary beauty, breath stealing beauty.
Gargoyle beauty, incredible -
utterly mesmerizing,
helpless beauty.

He could have been an artist.

Maybe
I’m mistaken
but I imagine kisses
like butterfly punches
and temples shaped
for alter songs.
This sigh you offer -
discreet and glancing.
A shape you’ve burned,
an arc to be admired.
Maybe, just maybe
I am the one
who does not
steal.

Seeds
need rain
like you and I
disolving soil and
seeping down to earth
once and through again
we go like icey broth
when winter chimes
in want of some reprise
we wake, and nourish all
feel each kernel, every husk
writhe and double
push the clay and loam
grasp the psalm of storms
and later, balm of stars
at dusk.
We are rain soaked
you and I
and into the footings we fall
ringing our brittle song
it calms and tells of times
renewed, like seeds
and rain
like you,
and I.

Happy new year!
Said the new
But what of the old
Thought I.
Isn’t it great?
We’re never late
And so felt the few
But nought
felt I.

Oh Gelderland,
in night I wait for you,
long before the tugging slay
of slate-smudged days.
Are you real or just a dream?
Oh Gelderland,
lying down with evening’s hearth
watching flame and twisting sprites,
hearing coals cracked wide
against my spite.
Tell me again
the things I wish I knew -
before my open eyes forget,
before my loping heart regrets
Oh Gelderland.
Let old winds blow,
like soul of souls on ribbon air
from you oh Gelderland -
come soon your mystery,
come soon.

I killed Santa
and then I broke
your heart.
I couldn’t lie.
I thought you knew.
This was the day
he died.
I told you,
he was a dream
to gently wake -
I whispered this
was part
of growing
up.
Yet still
the tears rolled
and you sobbed
and you cried again,
not foolish at all -
forever like,
a child.

Wisened smirks in tan and spur
on drifting plains where gauchos ride
with measured words of old-world burr
in parchment air the cow-punch calls
to stars and satellites .
Weather shirks and tin men blur,
on nowhere trains in race to find
the long gone herd of ways that were,
descent no more than new-born’s fall
on drifting plains the gauchos ride.
Please, don’t switch your T.V on
tonight.

I’ve seen her too.
Shiny, glassy even.
Midnight holding silver
Whistle to her lips
And the air abounds
With auspices of birds
Glowing like atom’s breath -
Imagined but alive.

You don’t
want to feel
like a flea
on the tail
of a dog.
You don’t,
but that’s
how it
is.

You know not
what to feel -
fight or flee,
watch or fall -
through graspless fog
of you know not.
This is just
how it
is.

You mustn’t fear
now tumbling you -
now scared, of all
the shocks.
You mustn’t feel
this way you feel.
This is the way -
it is.

Back from your adventure.
There you are. Stretching on the sofa.
Did the rain bother you?
We wondered if you’d sheltered -
you’d never seen such weather.
And we worried and we hoped,
and we tried not to wonder.
Had you ventured very far?
“I’m hearing wails”
(said our neighbour)
“… can you hear them too?”
Oh, how we ran to put on shoes,
hoping it would be
you.

Don’t stitch the sail
if stitching torn-past shreds.
Thus spoke blunting patched cloth,
all to worrymen and woe.
No stitch the sail!
Wish now for wonder wind!
This spoke parchment wings
curled and needing crystal thread.
Don’t speak, don’t speak at all
is what the needle
said.

I’m
imagining
you again
November
bound and
cursing
fog.
Fumbling -
two hundred and six
slacking bones
lazy TV eyed
& morning blurred.
Sleepwalking
onto winter.
Am I right?
It’s cold,
you know.

Doubt

rains down

like hunger creed

false smiling me.

White noise

tired eyes -

mumble handed

wails

all minded in ignorance.

Dread and burning sand.

Last breed’s last cry,

second best last try.

Don’t let it last.

Make it,

Stop.

Shiny apples tease
With scent of promises
With Summer dusted skin
With polished tone
They sing to me
Perfect veined in selfish sun
and nourished by the want
Of one.

Shiny apples call
Intent on Autumn fall
Intent on dusky hands
Intent on cherished clasp
They come to me -
So rarely caught in hold
and needful grasp.

Shiny apples spoil -
How fate turns them all
How soon they heed
How truth can be
They lie to me
To catch my eye
To hold my mind
No time
to wonder
why.

By ushered dawn
I’ll whisper long,
By winds since gone
I’ll sigh.

By fountains bold
I’ll summon hold,
By ancient song
I’ll try.

By stars above
I’ll call on love,
By mountains tall
I’ll cry;

By limbs of oak,
By none things spoke,
By thread of Nature’s cloak,
I now invoke.

Much more,
Than I.

Once,
I had a thought.
It was small
It was vulnerable
And it was very brave.
Like a tiny fish
Without a shoal
Lost and circling,
And puffing-up
Two times -
maybe four.
Couraged gainst
The sharpened teeth
By some pretence
This little fish,
This little thought
Swam on.

To be calmer
To try to understand
To dwell and
Know other minds.
To remember all things
No matter how small
To catch the shapes
In blurring wheels
I cannot see.
To try to be
Wise,
Is want to be -
Part of else
Apart from
Me.

I sat
and felt
the changes
come
the ages
rinsing
over
me
I sat
and saw
exchange
of sun
for rages
rushing
up to
see
I sat
and cried
and rain came down
how strange
for one
with pages
still to
see.

And on we go
To end of shows
Where no applause
Cuts pause
In words
Like nervous birds
Now resting here.

Bring ash of dawn
Where honour has no moon
As Lunar marks my heart
Of rising dust and crack’d lawns.
All sing in cached yawns
All shake the greying swans
On hiving rust and stack’d pawns,
I stare on days gone far
Too soon.

It’s always been
about the music
that’s what built
the towers.
And when the music
starts the walls
will shake.

I am stonepoem, once known for writing internet poetry at stumbleupon. 365 poems written between 2004 and 2005, and then, no more*. This started as an experiment about documenting an existance in poetry and sharing verse with other poetry blogs and writers who had become online friends - but it has became so much more.

I hope you enjoy what I have written for you.

stone.

* that’s a lie now, because I’ve started writing again…

S T A R T   H E R E > > >

Have you heard?
The poet is dead.
Silenced in descent
Of crouching night.
Forgotten now
By mortal winds
And things that speak
To breathless souls
Or hearts entwined,
Out amongst
The nebulae.
But don’t be sad
For errant voice,
No longer felt
And whisper stilled.
Thoughts, are such
Temporary things.
When you hear
This poet is dead -
Carve some words,
In stone.

Words
are a waste of time -
they’ve certainly occupied
too much of mine.
Shouting like pushy folk in line
from A to Z, demanding attention
in fray with clatterered heels
and sullied cries,
bold suggestions -
like Jazz sax strayed
too far from melody.
But it’s not I don’t enjoy
their crowded company.
No, far from it, I do -
I truly do and always will.
Where would I be
without our dialogue?
And beauty, and wonder
and other joys?
It’s just … I begrudge
the mechanics of these things -
these *words*.
They just can’t resist
trying to sneak their influence
beyond what I really want to say.
Words come with baggage you see.
What I think, what I write,
and what I speak -
it all gets ransomed by
dragging needs to express
and be understood,
to offer degrees of meaning.
In reality though,
not, the real me.

It was
always you.
Blue quartz seamed,
and running through
this solid stone of I.
And so behest was knock’d fate
with moon-tugged nights
and stullied appetite for winds
that never blew.
Time-tumbled,
on the greystone shore,
laid down the sighing churn -
locked me in with eon’s hold
of elemental bores.
And so I yearned,
and so I yielded.
And so I found.
And then I knew.
It was always,
you.

Every day I kick myself.
Is this laughter really mine?
Loud like bad played notes
on a cheap plastic horn.
But I am so proud.

And the stories they tell,
and the pictures they show -
ah, such wonder!

How did this occur?
There is no weariness now.
Suddenly I am, Superman -
jumping and giggling into life,
clamouring too with love.

Stilled am I in lull of night
No ocean’s move save salted spite
And where go I in loose-rigged winds?
No bounding heave, no push and cleave,
No rising line or white-mane minds.
All quietened like the muted damned,
Horizon-fixed with tar glued stares
Through eyes that blaspheme stars,
And with curses for a speechless sea
And the stolen shore yet far way.
I lie silent, waiting and becalmed.
Just these thoughts for company.
Oh take me home to those,
that wait for me.

When
you were born
I didn’t cry.
I was struck dumb -
could not describe
the feelings felt
for you.
Immediate,
like electricity
running through
my restless back
and flooding in
my empty head,
my vacuum heart.
Something,
switching on
deep inside
and bewitching
with delight,
and sparks
of life -
lightening
my soul.
But not,
like raptured
passion’s flame
or glowing ember’s
warm embrace,
nor kinship
of years
or kindly smiles
from journeys
shared.
No,
this feeling …
It was Instant.
It was Persistent.
It was Beautiful.
And I’ll never forget,
and I cannot escape,
and still cannot describe
beyond mere love
and loving
you.

May whatever you do, be better than what you’ve done,
Reclaimed from hard-drudged hours, like distilled time.
Where dreams are hoist with steadfast will and laughter peels
Against the hollow cry of pitied fate that follows all but you.

May you dare to run with winds, then leap the shadowed ground
To whisper calls at stirring night, not feared of worried days.
And you, who triumphs in the light will be joyous in the dew
Beguiled and surprised to tell of truths, to likes of you and I.

May you always stay temperate in the sluice of unkind rains,
Bite parched tongues that rise to taste the bracken pall,
Find blue opals in the darkest well of circumstance,
And stretching, go beyond our normal mortal reach.

And long may you embrace all things that you will learn
And speak of such to those you know, and don’t.
May your breath be strong and full, and your songs be sung
And leave a smile in mind for those you aim to teach.

Oh may you hear amongst the shouts, the murmuring of souls -
Seek wonders found in chance and call of happenstance,
And understand the understandings you shall heed
And then, may you recall these wishes left by me.

You had a glow about you
amongst the harvest souls.
Pin sharpened in the blur,
like a gilded lion you spoke to me.
Smiling, serene and standing proud -
the one to notice in the crowd.
No need to seek you out -
you had a glow about you.
And I heard (but did not hear)
and I saw (but did not see)
and then I knew.
You, are
mine.

We are your aches and pain -
indenture you must bear.
On kind shoulders
column strong - with prideful grace
for hold of acrobats.

Not dare we tell of minds,
in awe of patient kind
that is your way.

Forgetting belligerence,
regretting not the binds -
you guardian sleep the world,
raising sun and moon as we desire,
tucking in the day.

Oh I have drunk enough,
and swallowed, and gulped
then spat through grins.
And I have splashed my eyes
shook humbling sodden cloth,
felt shivers start within.
And I have dived to swim,
against the current’s sway
with limbs that struggle on
but know not what they see -
this most divine commodity,
this precious thing
that links our souls.
And I shall waste
no more.

What
is this thing -
this commune of souls
we now join?
Like calm weirpool’s rest
after spin of current
washing names
from stones.
You have entered me
and I have entered you
and we are one -
beneath the wind,
beneath the river kiss,
beneath even clefted earth.
And still we ask.

Watch now before you blink
Don’t miss the twinkling shards,
The spin against the water’s cloak
No number counts these thoughts you think.
Catch now the roaring chains of light
Afore this smudden dull of winter night
Before our afterwards of summertide
Such ancient thrills that now evoke,
Must fade like silvered ink -
Return the borrowed hours
Masking season’s interlink.

All hear the Bellowhead
Sucking us in - like fireflies
Circling end of summer sigh
From young bucks leap
O’er old man’s grimace grey.
Like madrigal birds at dusk -
On accordion breath that heaves,
With fiddling sentry’s hotfoot dance
To circus lights and roguery.
Let it blow like Bucovina brass
And let us show our red flamed hair,
Then know this copper breeze
That hails a bellowed call
Of grand traditions,
In the air.

Beds not made,
and dusty sills,
the washing-up and
headache pills.
The harshest words
for smallest ills -
like huff and puff
on trundled hills.
The words not spoke,
the things undone
from plans not won,
and songs unsung.
The wasted time
like chastened sand
that fell on hands,
or clutched sunshine,
and two-few smiles
not feared of miles.
And all of the above,
is not enough.

‘You are beautiful’ he wrote.
Scribbled on a thousand notes.
Trailing morning route -
stuck on posts
and windows too.

‘You are beautiful’ she read,
and saw this thing he said.
Running to her head -
like crushskin bread
and tiny clues.

‘How beautiful’ she thought.
A lover’s kind report?
Or was this last resort?
Either way,
Quite obviously NOT
her sort.

I am not nude
nor posed
nor pre-supposed
I am not rude
nor exposed
nor juxtaposed
and I’m not crude
or self-imposed.
This matter’s
closed.

Such is passion you invoke
Much are feelings you provoke
Touched I am by tender stroke
Like hushing flame and twisting smoke
Lush sense knows you have awoke
Like midnight flush on new moon oak
I rush to hear the words you spoke
For such is passion you invoke.

Shut up, cut the cord
From you to a future come
Stretched but sanguine too.

All of you bloody poets
Who do you think you are?
How dare you feign to speak
For puzzled souls like me.
And just because you aim to voice
What I only sense inside
It doesn’t make you right,
It doesn’t mean you’re qualified.
You say the things the way you do,
To make me try and work things out.
Stop questioning the way I feel -
Start writing about you,
And who the hell,
You poets think
You are.

All human life is here,
And the water doesn’t mind.
Young wavemakers in laughter,
Mothers below the wash,
Fathers sucking stomachs in.
And the water doesn’t mind.
It doesn’t mind the chemicals
The toddler piss, the heated hiss
It doesn’t heed the constant churn
Of carefree souls that never learn.
All human life is passing through
Equal skin in belly of pool.
Dabbling playful shallow,
Daring deepest end,
Darkest unknown floor.
And still the water
Does not mind.

Gather in the sun
Make the most
Before it’s done
Watch ripples
One last time
See the flowerings
Nature’s won
Meditate on how
Summer’s changed
The evening show
And even birdsong
Before season’s reel
And greying days
We all will know
Farewell now
To kind and warm
Before the storm
Before the spike
Of needle wind
And open souls
transformed.

I made a mistake.
This isn’t my life after all.
They said; ‘life’s what you make it’
but that’s just not true.
I would never admit defeat,
but must own up to some conceit -
I thought the world was there to take,
thought the earth was mine
beneath my feet.
But now come whisperings,
thoughts I should probably heed -
responsibilities and tripping points
like nine tenth icebergs,
cold and waiting underneath for me.
Yes, I’ll now admit to my mistake -
at least that’s one choice
I alone can make.

In all I’ve said
I’ve tried to say
In all I’ve told
I’ve tried to tell
In all, I’ve tried.

Press ‘1′ for feeling
Press ‘2′ for imagination
Press ‘3′ for respect
Press ‘#’ to start again.
Insert this, in that
then key it in.
Forget ink and pen
but remember your PIN
And check everything
you’ve entered…
I must be stupid
(or something)?
The system says
I’m overdue -
cannot continue,
but I know different.
Send me down the chute,
where fall self-serve damned
with fingers trapped and bruised,
digit-split, but humanity intact.
And someone tell those automated folks;
‘Guess what, we are people too’
before all the royal operatives,
become otherwise engaged.
Go on - supposedly they
really value our calls.
I could do it myself
but today, I’m indisposed.
So please, feel free
to leave a message
after the tone.

My heart was a sea-cracked harbour wall
Where once young legends lept and fell
In macho dare and banished care
In acrobatic grace and boastful tell
That knew not well of rocky layer
Below the lowest touch of tide
Below the coldest shock of blue
Still hearing shouts of youth
Amidst the seagull cries
That circle old men’s eyes
I watch for catch of sea
And sigh.

One day the world will stop
And you shall leap the circle’s roll
Though still, the glassy pebbles fly
And angry boulders run down hills
Onto shoulders push against the pull
With wavering urge of spinning tops
And spiralling seeds in final fall
Like Catherine Wheels that call.
And when rounding winds desire
They’ll cease their turn within
For such is fate that shall retire.
One day the world will stop
And you, will carry on.

Oh, sorry.
Didn’t mean to offend.
I was just … resting here awhile
Thinking on things, journeying inside.
The rules involved weren’t clear to me,
I did not think you’d mind so much.
Me, just sitting and watching
This world and others passing by,
Not knowing you demand a show.
Tell you what, give me a few more days.
Just need to collect my thoughts
Before moving on.

What a perfect lawn.
Bottle green nourished and sparkling
In the dawn like a King’s blanket,
Carefully thrown across the ground below.
It was here, she thought of him.
Here, where she let children loop their hearts,
Watched ambling lovers rest and sip red wine
Where nervous souls unwound the day
And owls embraced their quiet time.
This barefoot salve for tired steps
A million tiny hands that stroked,
That told of newness in the day
But always reminding her of him.
And she, amidst this memory,
so proud of tender green.
He’d just laid down.

What they had is gone,
And all I feel is blankness.
Numbed like some medicated fool
Avoiding their wretched reality.
It’s not indifference or avoidance though -
I suspect it to be more a kind of odd guilt,
Like a fog that pities the landscape
But nonetheless must smother the light below.
Something IS there, but must not be seen,
Something is aware, but nust not be known.
All they had is gone and I’m numb again.
With hollowness, with vague intent
Writing to you under
Postcard-dry skies.
What else can
I do?

Look to samphire skies
Where nature’s stations form
Where playful dusk twists sun
And stars begin to turn.

Gaze on, gaze on
Where nations share the show
Where children learn to muse
With horizon twine and flow.

Drink-in the twilight breach
Where souls run to rivered night
Feel winds that rest and contemplate
Then breathe what we all know.

No-one owns the sky.

Who
are we
to pre-suppose
to know that we are those
that shine with special glow.
We are merely they,
that follow normal ways
asking questions as we go
of whom and what we want to be.
And what is this we wonder now?
Who the hell,
are we.

Let’s get drunk
and **** like monkeys!
Let’s roll around awhile
and wail like midnight dogs
intoxicated by our own smell.
Let’s be the untied beasts
of strange instinct within -
boundless and carnal,
without culture or regard
for nothing less than our release.
And after, we can lie together
and sniggle like embarrassed mice,
laughing at how very silly
all the other animals
have been.

I have been thinking
about abstraction.
About huge brushed pools,
with meaning smudged -
blurs of pure sensation
beyond the frame.
There is a divine push
and colour pull defined
even in the ripple strokes,
like feather blown breaths
one step on from canvas pins,
from paint, from turpentine.
In this picture all expands and flows
away from mortal confine with confidence it goes,
with unhindered power that shakes the edge of things,
with desire to distillate our own living.
And there, composing the scene,
with big-sky eyes of refracted gaze,
a creator clearly shows how life can bend,
be skewed without context and earthly things,
or logic’s curse to manifest or represent.
And the more I see, the more I look,
the more I look, the more I know.
But still, I fail to fully understand.
Why do artists chase blue shadows
for mysterious intent?

There I was.
Beyond sand-burned restless toes
Now stilled beneath my deskbound woes.
No mails to write no calls to make
No complex thoughts to navigate.
Barefoot and tributary washed
I was wind-cooled freedom stepped
Jumping waves and chasing roll of tide
As far as eyes could call.
And I must - I must remember
The melting sundae blend of sky
To heat haze shores and on.
I felt warmth of gritted soles and feet
Laid down and spilled on red-hot rocks
That led toward the edge of sands
Where men like I must run to find
The blessed kiss that ocean always tells
To souls now wearing polished shoes
And stifled reign of socks.

Who stole
the lighthouse keys?
No beacon can I see.
No roaming beam
circling by degrees,
reaching out across the sea,
Oh keep these rocks away from me.
Who stole the lighthouse keys?
Who snubbed candle’s reach?
No seam of light to hold the night,
no mark and guide cross awkward skies,
and now, the screeching gulls of eventide.
No more I see - just mystery
controlled by those who stole
the lighthouse keys.

I can’t hear the guitar
and the cymbals sound shrill.
The bass is just a mumble
and it saps my goodwill.
All the vocals sound bizarre
and nothing fits the bill,
and it makes me want to grumble
about these musical ills.
Never wanted to be a big star,
just jump above the mill
but all I do is stumble -
watch my pride go downhill.
But the next gig will be better
and I will recognise my own skill
and these vain doubts will crumble,
when again I feel the thrill.

What makes them so special?

They can fly, yes.
They can flash like jewels in summer, yes.
So what, that they flit with beauty’s charm.

We can do all these things too.
We can, you know (but perhaps you do not).
And anyway, who is to say that when we die
we don’t all come back as butterflies?

And such thoughts should not be left
just to the melancholy of you and I.

Ah yes, you and I …
at each end of the line - pulling against
our doubts and fear like brutes in tug of war -
not knowing without wings we can fly.

You
lit the fuse inside
and were the muse beside
quelling bruise and cry of tide
never refusing or denied.
Oh how you skewed my pride
and continued to deny -
no use for us to try
or choose as we
not I.

There are some who cannot sleep
but I am not one of those.
Maybe it is sunflares, or wireless waves -
or just careless late night revelries
that cause my eyes not want to see,
and crave the shut and hide
from light and ordinary days.
Oh how sweet a fix of sleep might be
for me here counting blinks of hours,
from daylight bounds to cushioned doze.
Maybe I’m just getting older?
Or staring at the screen too long?
Perhaps a candle burned all sides?
And as I cup my forehead in cold palm hands,
and drift awhile before whip-snapped back,
I’m too tired to feel guilt or fully realise
my luck - that I’m not one of those,
who cannot sleep.

He left
before the ink
had dried.
Just stood up,
pushed the chair
then walked away.
But not in temper or frustration -
more like quiet, pensive air
such as that found at the end of exams
or when signing mortal documents.
This was determined consideration,
as evidenced by the pen lined up -
gracefully placed with elegant hand
in symmetry with closed covers
and memories scrawled,
like old ledger marks recalled.
But there was deathly deliberation
when he capped the lid and bit his tongue
to stop the thoughts that leaked
on paper trails and trials,
that lead to you and me.
It was not good for him you see;
this opening of secret boxes,
this butterfly chase without a net.
This nakedness of soul before an ocean -
it hurt just a bit too much.
And so he sighed and left
before the ink
could dry.

Like
needles spun
from north to south
talking circled hope
and pushing on
like rivers run
from fount to mouth
discarded ropes
below the sun.
And all things done
when we were young
on scattered slopes
now end before
they have
begun.

Hoist your sight above the lashes
weighing like cross-roped crates,
their cargo pressing down
upon your eyes.

Why - when there is much more
to see, to experience, and to learn
must you focus on the hatches
and not the sky?
Why?

It started,
with a cursor kiss
and keyboard strokes
before they clicked.
Then whispered nights
became the safety net
that fixed the breath
of teasing swoon
and furtive sighs.
But these,
weren’t young fools
or sweat-soaked youth.
No, these souls
had learned the dance before -
a thousand times in fact
it should be known.
And every step
was shared.
So they danced.
They really danced.
Not just in notion, nor theory -
but like fiery molecules,
rolling in energetic flux
like downhill streams
rushing to sea,
in synchronicity.
Treading dreams
of flowered sway and
waltzes in the shadows
behind St. Wenseslav’s horse
they whirled and flitted -
not wondering where hours
roam or care to go.
And that was that.
And they both knew -
the moment when
the dancefloor
moved.

Here, we are ghosts in the armature
rattling cage and tugging tight the lines.
Like puppets hung in trapeze swing,
with harness pull from wind and spool.
And we are neon birds on tangled toes
with careful steps over charged cathode.
We move from A to B, then on to Z
with plug and play perfundity.
Let’s pull away the wires,
try to find the real
you and me.

This one’s for the two of you
as you rise like stars above,
like prayered hands that clasp
the twin souled magnet night.

This one’s for the two of you,
in kissing wind and shared air,
like gulping silver fish that rush
to capture all, to be the ones.

This one’s for the two of you
who think these thoughts you share
and gaze in pools of eyes and soul,
then fall in love with wonders found.

When all your words are voiced outloud,
And every leaf is sketched and proud,
With every nod amongst the crowd
As shuffled air inside a cloud.

When you count totals of the days,
And mark the notches in your ways,
With charted limits to your gaze
As mitred pace in things you say.

When all goes back into the box,
And wheels spin against the blocks,
With silence before the aftershock,
As melting ice amongst the rocks.

How will you know?

I saw the dancer smile.
She couldn’t hide her happiness
for all of us who sat in front
in theatre aisles.
It was clear sat ten rows back -
seeing this clarity of moment.
It was all magnified and close -
spotlight precise in focus;
Sometimes, when we look for joy
we need help to see
more clearly.

Even a champion will sometimes find
situations that conspire to defeat ambition.
Contained maybe, by wrapped circumstance -
a soul in crinkled hold - in darkened fold
exhausted by the walls that sap his will,
that suck the air that starves the light.
Trapped, in a brown paper bag - scrunched and
dirty bunched, held tight in fate’s hand.
And he has tumbled in with bruises
and sweaty fists that push against
the muted thing he dreads to know.
Even champions will tire.

Bananas
and onions
that’s all
he wants to eat.
Oh! This little boy
will be the death of me.
He rides his bike
without his helmet on,
and wails when I defy his will -
makes me feel that I am wrong,
when his trousers
are too loose and itch
his thrashing legs
that kick me in the jaw.
‘Lighten up’ I think when he
tightens up his noose on me,
this bedtime story heckler,
this seasoned pre-school shirk
up against a punch drunk fool
waiting to hear the bell.
And one of us will go to hell
but I’m sure it won’t be him.
It’s when he smiles you see -
he’s an angel, who hides
his wings.

There’s a stone in my shoe
under gavel of tread and stride.
A remembrance that coincides
with stomach-knot reminders
and memento sighs returning
with every step away from days
before today.

Then, we walked barefoot,
it seemed a thousand miles.
Over hot rocks like peppercorn steaks,
Over warm, soft dunes like sifted nutmeg,
Over rutted shale towards seaweed dance.
And there, with grazed ankles, toes and heel,
that was when you taught me how to feel -
to let the soothful waves just brush away
all unkind gravel, stone and sand.

And now, there’s a stone in my shoe.
And it annoys and bothers me so,
I wonder what I should do -
that’s why, I think of you.

I will keep this thought
to myself tonight.

F i b  o   n     a        c              c                       i                                  .
F i b  o   n     a        c              c                       i                                  .

F i b  o   n     a        c              c                       i                                  .
	
F i b  o   n     a        c              c                       i                                  .
	

F i b  o   n     a        c              c                       i                                  .
	

F i b  o   n     a        c              c                       i                                  .
	
F i b  o   n     a        c              c                       i                                  .
	

Nuance.
Now there’s a good word.
A sense, a feeling
of sophisticated subtlety.
Like something you can’t see
or touch, or taste
beyond mundane reality.
Something you can’t quite place
or an underlying philosophy -
perhaps what you might call
intrinsic personality.
Not quite sure and not quite there
like quiet tones in painted air.
But definitely everywhere.
The signals of distinction
I often miss in the meaning,
in the mystery of all
you mean to me.

If I were a woman
would you like me more?
I wouldn’t mind -
In fact, it might
be rather nice.
If I were a woman
how would you speak to me?
Would I understand
the secret code
that only women know?
If I were a woman,
would I change my ways?
Would my world turnaround?
Would I learn of grace
or struggled ways?
And if I were a woman,
what of sexuality?
Inevitable. You knew I’d ask,
but intriguing nonetheless.
I just don’t know all this
and never will.
But I am sure
it would be fun
to try.

OK.
I’ll admit it.
I’ve been listening
to Norwegian Jazz.
Is that so bad?
There’s this track
by Jaga Jazzist;
“Swedenborgkske Rom”
It really speaks to me
of things we’ve talked about.
of life, of age, of hope
but loneliness and
melancholy too.
This music,
like winter’s awkward pall
fused with hopeful sun,
and deer breath in the spill of time.
And then, the cracking melt
of ancient ice as whales call below.
A sound, that’s wise and crystalline,
but childlike though and kind.
Ah yes … so haunting!
As if from aged ghosts
calling all their echoes in
from iceberg nights.
Deep as fjords
and rivers spawned,
I listen to Norwegian Jazz,
and think of you.
I wonder if
you’d like
it too.

Who holds the ropes
That tug the pulleyed sky?
Who drapes the blinds of night
O’er blinking lamp of day?
They, with black-out eventide,
Down cross dusked light,
Bringing scene-changed actors back;
To curtain call of spotlight moon.
Much more than stagehand turnaround,
More than cued-up interlude,
More indeed than men can comprehend.
Who masterminds this sunset show?
This finely tuned performances -
Before a thousand billion heartfelt bows
I need to tell them how I feel,
Who are they? Do you know?

So,
it’s goodbye again.
I’ll go back to memories
and wonderings of what you’re gonna do,
what you’re doing, and what you’ve done.
It’s odd. I always thought
we were a duration pair -
like doubled packed lightbulbs
waiting to be found in the drawer.
Maybe not and never mind.
A single lighted match
will have to do.

Meet me,
at the first dream to the left
after the midnight bells.
I’ll be the one wearing a cape
made from peacock’s pride,
and a satin patch over
the wrong eye.
I mean it!
I’ll be there!
Waiting,
for someone -
someone like I’ve never met
(but have always known).
Someone carrying magic
in the heels of their shoes.
But how will I know
if it is you?

Wind,
that dulls.

A selfish air
that doesn’t care.

Rattling me.
Knocking bones.
Cooling heart
like ice sirens
smiling before
the freeze.

Am I so empty?
So… spacious inside,
Why let these fronds
of discontent
take fingerhold
within?

Such spiteful things
thrive in unbound air,
and clutch and ride
on doubts we leave
behind.

Was it you
that started this?

Was it you that passed
through me?

Stop rooting around
and gazing at the finery.
Stop staring at the bottom
of the bin they’ve put you in.
You’re worth so much more
than those wailing sighs,
and blodshot nights,
that bruise your heart
in awkward fight.
Don’t you understand?
There is noble majesty
in the darkest maggot bowl -
burning bright and lighting
rusted scrape and tin,
and meaning so much more
than other unkind souls
will ever mean to me.

I saw them.
Kissing in the whispered breeze,
Like tandem bulrush reeds knocked
And fervent in lover’s wind.
The careful stoop of him meeting rise
And hope of her, leaning, bowing, bending -
Brushstroking the air in abandoned pose.
In tender togetherness they moved
Like star-twinned vapour trails,
The ones that fade through necklaced night
Before ascent of heated azure days.
So strange, I thought to see them here
To see such delightful intimacy.
And then, I realised.
These were
memories.

Can you run faster than the truth?
Can you catch it in your hands,
And throw it back to us?
Strike the bullseye!
Split the apple!
Storm the ramparts!
We all have targets
in our hearts.

Does a flame know when it burns?
Or of its brethren’s fellow toil?
All burn bright because they must
And all of this is down to trust.
Is this faith, or faith in destiny?
No call to idols and unproved deities,
Who comprehend these things that vex
Apart from Artist’s charcoal scratch.

Let us be caressed
like refreshed lovers,
underneath fingertip rain.
Let us lie below the sky
and feel the wake up calls,
falling like soft arrows -
into valleys of tired skin.
Let us smile amid the downpour.
Let us swim in rivers formed.
It is Summer and now
we should welcome rain.

There’s more here
than you shall ever know,
and that’s the way
of things.

Here,
we are all but only here
in this strange
invented place.

But together
we roll, as two -
like bonded wheels
over ancient tracks.

Any more than this,
we dare not dream -
but that’s O.K.
by me.

Obvious really…

I
like,
punctuation.
It really helps -
to frame the words.
Like breaths and sighs,
and pauses - reigning track of thought.
But then, sometimes, it’s frustrating;
stutter and muddle - jolt and bolt.
Things come out …. fractured
and staid. But then again -
I’m getting there.
Wherever,
that,
is.

Hunched
and squinting,
at the screen.
I lean toward
your soul within.
Bunched
and hinting,
what it means.
Slim rewards
are everything.

Only when the glimmer ends
Will we pine for shinest moon
Then gone will be the argon sky
And footprints in the light.
Only when the clouds contend
Will we wrestle grey cocoon
And gaze in open barreleyes
At fortitute of atoms bright.
Only when the stars descend
Will we soar yet soul marooned
As tethered flashes leaping high
Like lost balloons in age’s flight.
Then alone, and only then,
Will we know friends.

Hello.
Are you there?
I said ARE YOU THERE?
Or did I just imagine you?
Maybe you are just a shadow
emboldened by my propensity
to see faces in clouds.
And as hollow wind moans,
maybe you really are just a figment -
detached and wandering the sands,
but too dispersed for me to see.
Hello? Where are you?
There’s tumbleweed twisting
over the waiting ghost of me,
and still I cannot shake
this stupid vanity.
Hello, is that you?
I just love it when
you visit me.

It’s the colour she wears
and I see her everywhere.
I see her in trees
and in hillside shows,
I see her on grassy mounds
on bankside river flow.
She throws a shawl upon the land
and playss her verdant hand.
It’s the colour she wears
and I see her everywhere.

When you become a father
The world turns differently
And wheels that used to spin
Now roll with soul within.

God, save us from the dullards
And the pedants and the mean
Give us strength to rise above
The cloying webs they weave.
Send cutting winds that blow
The ties of their mundanity
Let them follow wiser ways!
Reminding all of our humanity!
Lord, steer us from awkwardness
Away from oafish push and shove
Take doubters and the unkind sane
Move them like the wings of Jove.
Give us joy in our creativity
So then we may again believe
In you, above and willing on -
And caring for our frailty.

I wanted to write
but now I’m not sure.
Do I feel sweeping and
glorious or mystical?
Should I forgive my vanity
and doubt, clasp together
opposite arms in poetry?
My eyes are tired,
and so are my bones
and without caffeine
I cease to be.
Why bother?
What is it I feel
so driven to say?
I really don’t know
(and tonight I don’t care).
We can sort this out
another time.

Words,
like butterfly dust,
blown as windseed
ether-cast thoughts.
No more than breath,
thrown to skyhold
clasp of sparkle stars.
Mist and cloudsong,
feeling’s balm -
like heaven’s never
rain.

She smiled, like a cello on its side,
and I bowed my finger cross the wires.
A nervous student, without notes,
without manuscript or lines -
I felt brutish and naive.
But then she sighed,
and all symphonies
combined.

And who put this barrier between us?
It refracts the knowing of who we are.
This splintered view, smudged
and denying the truths of everything,
it diffuses our connectedness.
We orbit such frayed outskirts -
you and I, like lost and aching birds
mist drenched, circling.
Reticent to land.

Poorly fish,
gravel stilled as he now is.
Despite the occasional flurry,
the current that used to buoy
now pins his tired body down.
Flat-finned and waiting, he lies
patient for the quietened sand -
perhaps, remembering sparkle
and bubble rise of leaping youth.
And I too, recall this golden flash
amidst the world it swam within.
And we both now wait for the end
as I watch and will him to the rise,
to fight for food and light -
to health and extended life.
But now, all he knows is this;
A fish that does not swim,
is not a fish.

Eat for the hungry,
for they cannot feed themselves,
then swim for the dust-bowl kids,
who crane to catch the water drops.

Be stylish for the ragged dressed
in sun-bleached *ethnic* clothes,
and laugh out loud for desolate hearts
who know not love nor family.

Run free for the stumbling ones
when they cannot leave the dirt,
you can wake and smell the roses
for sake of sewered folk and down.

Speak joy for these muted souls,
Rest serene for all their wearied toils.
Then sip tea and watch it all, on your TV
(for those with no electricity).

Let the
water flow
down stoney slope
through hillslip mud,
breaching kid built dams
over oldwash twigs.
Let it filter,
let it purify,
let it flow.

Every tear that ever fell,
Every night of ocean’s swell,
Every scent and every smell,
And every year drawn from the well.
Every sunset that said farewell,
Every dancing molecule and cell,
Every stone that must rebel,
And on the memories we dwell.
Every peel of moon-tugged bells,
Every flow within the fontanelle,
Everything I shall foretell,
All, but whispers in the yell.

Between the coffee and the chocolate
that’s where we will be -
checking out, before the check-out,
eyeing basket tell-tailed groceries.
Our non touch dance without romance,
and furtive glance of no demand.
A flirtation, so subtly voiced
between the heaving aisles.

I watched you drawing,
and I was just so happy.
You crossed the road alone,
and found the best view
then set yourself up -
as if for the thousandth time.
Did you know I was sneaking
quick looks across the way?
You, sitting on that pavement box
like an awkward wunderkind.
Me, watching your head weaving,
back and forth - collecting
what you saw, placing it all
so carefully on the sketch
you drew so beautifully.
You looked so content,
so grown-up. I felt selfish
in my want for you to stay
forever in such a happy place
along with the scribblings
that marked your new adventure.
Ah well, at least you may remember
the day you drew a picture of our house
and the time you made your father
so very, very proud.

Who am I?
Well, I know this -
I am NOT you.
Unless of course,
you slept and dreamed
that we touched souls
in the night, merging
into one.
Who am I?
I am NOT who
you think I am.
Unless of course,
just in the thinking
you brought me into being -
formed me like some
imaginary friend.
Who am I?
Well, I’m NOT sure -
does it really matter
in the end?
Perhaps I am just
here, now,
in this moment
of you, wondering
who I am.

Let me think …
Is it almonds, butterscotch?
or chocolate coated marzipan?
It could be caramel even,
but it’s duskier than that.
Powdery, like sun dried sheets
or bathwater patchouli.
And then there’s citrus too,
(but not too perky)
like mulled wine
or lemon grove dew
in the morning.

All are scent of you.

Behind the puppet show
where children never go,
there stands a lonely man
who tugs the strings
that bind the arms
of childish things.

Behind the puppet show
and stripy canvas throws,
lie nervous little hands
with spinnered plans
to hide the charms
that clownhood brings.

Shame you missed the rainbow
I really wanted you to see,
it was like the edge
of a butterfly wing
magnified and stretched
across the sky.
Something about it
seemed so powerful,
so magical. I even believed
that on this strange day
it would curl from me
to you.

Caught you are
By your own invention.
That thing for which you previously cared.
Stuck you’ve become on the tangle side
Cat’s cradle threaded over hands with no thumbs,
Tripping steps through mask room of fate
Now resounding for someone else -
Someone you don’t know
(Or never knew).
Someone,
Never,
You.

There is always something,
something that reminds -
that marks the pass of time.
Like dusky click of clockwork hands
and helpless hold of hours lost,
like the always notching gears
and cogs of slowly whittled days.
Such things remind
of muted fate.

Every baby’s cry.
Every laugh and sigh.
Every question asking why.
All but moves toward
the final hammer call,
and echoed nails bullied down,
then buried under trickling soil
and stone that falls upon the quiet sleep
where creaking lichens grow.

There is always something,
something that reminds.
Listen to the sounds
of passing time.

You are the soft wind that circles
In orbit around my earthly heart
The ceaseless breeze that kisses
But never slows in its domain
Over me, in reign of bounded soul
Over helpless capstone sleeves
My close-eyed hope that waits
For arc and sweep and tilt to I
And change in your trajectory.

All blue in the old Beehive
We’re hearing full moon wail
Wall to wall with twitching men
Holding pints and keys on chains
Their nodding purse of wisened lips
And naive balls of leisured feet
Crane in spectacle of him -
In Sunday’s best and gravel voice;
All hailed might of Watermelon Slim.

It’s time to re-arrange the coats and shoes,
and it troubles us there are some we never use.
Especially now, we’re on the cusp of sunny days,
gone should be Wellies and brolly stand ways.
Soon, it’ll be time for birdsong chime
and jaunts, and hushed marvelling at the climb.
We’ll sit at the top of the hill with beer instead of rain,
watch people flowering in their saunter up the lane.
A time for sleep and softkissed breeze,
evening pored with dreams that race like bees.
And on towards the half-eyed chase of dawn,
we’ll tip-toe over dewsoaked lawns.

I shall leave some words
for you to find when I am gone.
Words from the secret one -
written thoughts not dared to voice.
Words from the inside -
sculpted from imaginings,
into real, tangible things.
I will leave some words
for you who seek
a part of me that’s
left behind.

Not even poets know his name
This man who cuts all labels
from his virtuoso clothes.
And he who only speaks
through wistful
enigmatic notes,
has used no words
in weeks of history
with doctors and interpreters
from Poland, France (and Sweden too).
He has no voice -
slammed shut in mystery.
Incommunicado,
since that rain-soaked night
of sudden wandering
that puzzles all.
Did he fall out with someone?
Did he fall off a ship?
Did he fall off the world?
Listen how
he plays for solace
in his days.

As dark as weasel toes that dig for agate glow
Where once were diamonds below deepest coal
Here lie mudcoat stones of mortal kind
Some say as shaded magic cast in starless night
That hides from restless toil of hooded sky
Where shipwreck quiet must leak its hold
Then ride on nightmare’s angry foals
All spitting dust to claim,
Our ill-considered souls.

Older than I’ll ever be
and wider than the stars
wiser than desires of ours
boulder to the grains of we.

I am falling like leaf spun in autumn roll
Like a papered plane in downward fall
There goes grace in gravity’s hold
On this air of splintered boards
As if it is not the landing
that really matters
As if it is the
glide that
counts
.

She asks for Dandelions
but all I have is words.
Words like lemon, mane
or honeysticks
and beaconed yellow
fireworks.

Words,
they might resound
like sepal, petal, stamen -
even floral formula
diagrams.
All these stretch
to summer ankle fields,
near quietened sphere
of where I am.

Last night I dreamed, and saw your face.
Framed behind the shutters of sleep
it WAS you, clearly smiling at me!
This was a strange recognition
like seeing an amnesiac polaroid,
and yours, was a composite
of all the faces I have seen.

Was it really you?

There was something I longed to say.
Something carried across the miles,
held close and desparate to be heard.
But as I dreamed and saw your face,
you grinned, and I then knew the real you.
I forgot my dullard words and turned away,
no longer feeling need or want to say.

Oh,
see the high ones play
like red and blue inkspots
in the willowing sky.
There. See them lifting
way above the over-hang
that influences wind
of little hopes like ours.
We try so hard to launch
above the shoulders
of windless days.
But do we feel
despair below the frame?
Do we know
the twisted strings
of innocence and crash?
No! Such earthly bindings
mean nothing to us,
who stay determined.
Soon, we WILL
fly!

There is a place
of windless sails and wing-clipped wails.
An airless space of slackened time
like old corroded twine
tethering heartbeats and nobled spirit.
A place where muted calls of fate
becalm the soul embalmed by ancient fronds
of ice-dipped hope that mystify the telescope
on age’s sky - where once white lions
pounced and played and roared
to memories and shores
of a youth that never
could be ours.

A peerless raindrop caused the flood
Like a black cell in the cleanest blood.
This was the blink that turned to sleep,
The final rest to scythe its harvest’s reap.
This was the smear that blurred the sun
Through squinted looks that told us all
In whispers fanning flame of days,
Dried, the youthful leaves of one
Who once, could silence crowds.
With heartbeats and a single breath
Like a newborn calling the world
A tiny thought to change us all.
Such is the power of words.

I know
you miss the rhythm tree,
remembering too the seahorse sway
play and mystery through comb of song
writing itself in the pocket of time,
touching, feeling the roots -
in soil of sacred ground.
This is the beat
only entwined souls know -
the rustle of unification,
catching groove and flow.
Let me ask;
have you forgotten
the joyous seeds
memories can sow?

Maybe I should shout this from a mountain top
But I don’t have a mountain to hand
If I did, it would be a magical place
Sculpted from some rare stone to propel my words
Closer to you, rising highest above the rival peaks
Appearing, as if mist shrouded Tibeten legend -
Now being revealed, but only to you.

If I breathe, I breathe for thee
And every gasp of me doth resonate
With joyful air from ground to grove,
To mackerel sky above and back to me.
I breathe, I breathe for thee -
And atoms that we share agree.

oh

cast me

on the sea of you

like an ocean flower

lapping in the throw of tide

oh how you make me crave

the dive and clasp of pearls

the shifting sands below

from which I might rise

to driftwood breeze

and clips of wave

on sunset skin

triumphant in

the undertow

of you.

oh!

throw me

onto ebb and flow

immersed in mysteries

that you alone can show

oh let me sail on motion rolls

mark your seabound tack

on charts of journeys made -

of flowers lost then found

but never coming back

oh lift me, away…

drag me into you

then onto wonders

that only now

I dare to

know.

I was a black hearted storm,
Giant in the crack of sky.
Telling all to cower and hide
Like sodden lads shivering
Below cracked windowsills
And hidings from drip and drain.

I sent them daggers of rain
From a sudden underworld,
Sliced the air into fragments
Of stilled and hushed awe,
Undoing the buckle and brace
Of comfortable lives.

Then, I scratched the skies.
Gave them electric glint
Connected ground and cloud
To signal my amusement
And spun them like reels
Reaching end of spool !

Above, I laughed on.
Enjoying the drama
Of this pretence
Over these scurried ants
Seeking shelter’s vanity
Below the leaves that blow.

But then, I felt subdued
And muted in intent.
I saw the ground below
In circle of season’s clash,
Sensed the cries of broken corn
And their angled stalks in bow.

Did I feel remorse?
Did my hesitation signal
Limitation of my force?
I stopped, and sniffed
The air and earth below -
All fine with harvest’s scent.

There is nothing,
but this addiction.
This driving force
it forgoes good intent
to stay away, to just ignore
this all-day ache that grows
from worse to worse
and back again.
I don’t want
to speak
to you tonight
of moon or chemistry,
of souls or complex minds,
but I am marooned
by instinct’s pull
to bow again to you -
the reason for these
stumbling words.

There are things
I should be doing,
away from thoughts
of you, with your hold
as strong as honeydew
that gently catches me.
You are everything
and everywhere.
Lost in you, I am
abandoned in sweet hold -
blind and blurred by the
touch and flood
of you that makes me
forget these things
I should be doing
yet still remain
undone.

We kiss like Chinese fish
Like loaded inkbrush strokes -
Circling grain and ancient turn
(The kind you see in father’s books).

Like loaded inkbrush strokes -
We are dipped and saturated
Playful, but disciplined in arc and flow
Swept below the dark-watered lilies of night.

We are dipped and saturated
Circling grain and ancient turn
Swept below the dark-watered lillies of night,
We kiss like Chinese fish.

Dad
once kicked a ball
so high - I swear,
it disappeared
into the clouds
higher than the stunt kites
he taught us how to fly.
That’s how it seemed,
and I remember
the green of the park.
This was the day
when we found a weir
(the one I lost my shoe in)
teeming with flashing trout,
and I was just so proud
when he cast his line
and reeled them in.
Speaking of water,
we sometimes stayed
on his cabin boat.
Named after us kids it was.
We didn’t see him much,
so these were special times
that always ended with
wind-tinkling masts
and exciting next day plans.
He was a captain,
with an adoring crew.
And, he had THAT look too!
His jazz look.
It would embarrass me so -
all beatnik crazy.
Nodding, finger-popping,
shouting “yeah”,
with starey eyes
and big band styled
hep cat smiles.
Ah, If only
I’d realised then.
I’d want to write
a thousand lines,
a million words or more -
about him, about laughter
about amazement - about growing up.
But that’s selfish,
so I won’t.

Today,
I lost myself.
Just for an instant,
it wasn’t me
standing there
thinking about
who and what I am.
And for a moment
I was nothing,
but a thought
bodyless and free.
Floating beyond
the soft cage
that is me.

Then,
I remembered.

We dare not speak sometimes,
like children scared of grown-up things.
No wish to show our vulnerability,
we stare in silence, into the night
as would harboured wives who hope for light
on tearing ream of darkened sea.

We also share a strange, quiet, airless grace -
like canyon sealed butterflies, flitting.
From side to side - from mind to mind,
never risking wings in rockface flight.

And we dare not speak sometimes.
For kidnapped souls afraid to call
for muted hold of hidden keys,
for locks that bind the unsaid things.

Let’s speak up and hear
the untold thoughts
of you and me.

Not years, or months - this season leap
Like skimmed stones spun on cleaving lakes
Not days, or hours - that lover’s keep
Or driftwood sprites helmed in secret flow.
Not time, just feelings - like ocean’s bones
Kissing moon-drenched span and bow.
All these, measures of a fate we share
Born of waters we must come to know.

This is formally the begining
Of the longest poem ever written.
It will skip from serious to flippant
From prose to rhyme and back again.
It will change from classic style to free-form wild
It will twist and turn like a twisty, turney thing.
It will do WHATEVER it wants (or your own mood dictates).
Anything goes, but you must bear in mind -
This poem must never end.

How
many
heartbeats
are we allowed?
How many ticks and tocks
of nature’s arms will subdivide
the days and nights when we collide
to ponder beats of life that mark
the turnaround to end of dance and song?
No answer for you now, my friend - I have stopped the count.
And as the final levers fall, within I come to realise;
It - won’t - be - long.

Don’t look at me with naïve eyes,
like big splashed pebbles before sun
awaiting the kiss of eternal sea
and laughing curl of children’s toes.
Don’t look to me for all I can defy,
my vanity feigns to hold these years -
for you, who grows, whilst I stay old.
Don’t look back, don’t look ahead,
Don’t look now, don’t look, don’t look!
You’ll know when the moment comes
to race alone cross coarser sand,
towards the tide for running’s sake,
across the marks of necklaced time.
Then, you’ll look at me to say goodbye,
you’ll turn and wave, to face the spray
and I’ll throw away your little shoes.

We may not have a river
Or seats of learned wise,
Or spires of aspiration,
Like reverend pencils
Filling scribbled sky.
We may not have urbanity
Or graceful galleries,
And eruditious eateries -
For simple tillaged folk
Like you and me.
But, we have community.
Where gentle rogues
Still rake the moon
And lovers swoon
Through squinted eyes.
We watch the midnight downland
Bonfires marking boundaries
For all of us that now accept
Our compromise.

This is difficult to write
I prefer to flow and not to know
for you, my villanelle tonight.

Complex are you in your delight
that vexes my words that grow
This is difficult to write.

Men like me do not normally invite
such discipline of thought to show
for you, my villanelle tonight.

And to you, this must be slight
but me, I need to take things slow
This is difficult to write.

We’re near close of rhyme that fights
and traps words in this fixed tableaux
for you, my villanelle tonight.

And so it must end, this debt I owe
the spurs I earn and then forgoe.
This was difficult to write
for you, my villanelle tonight.

It’s a Saturday night
and we should be in love
but you and me
are in different rooms
and you read magazines,
whilst I read catalogues.
After all these years,
that’s not too bad -
but it feels like a void
that can’t be crossed -
a conversation we must have
about conversations
we need, to have.

How should we start?

It’s mine now.
I found it,
and you didn’t miss it
until I told you
where it was.
If it was yours,
how come you
didn’t care
for it before?
You can’t
have it back now -
this thing needs
unreserved attention.
Anyway,
you shouldn’t
have thrown
it away.

It’s not
about love.
Or sexuality.
It’s about the way we fit.
Like the turn of stream that clings to mountainside
or heirloom keys in Grandma’s hand
Like pillow dip for tired eyes
or children’s palms at Christmas time.
It’s not wanting.
Or desire.
More like embers in the glee of coal
and clustered stars that sing for soul.
It’s the last piece in the jigsaw
It’s the shipping news at night
It’s the words I wish I’d said.
We just seem to
fit.

Damn these currents that drag you down
and pull against the muddy rocks -
you don’t deserve such atrophy.
Spun and untoward in turbulence
that batters and crushes hope,
where gulps become swallow
of vile stew in which you sink.
My friend - just remember
to hold your breath, and kick
against this cruelest pull -
and you may again swim
toward the shallows.

Give me time
to speak of things.
when seconds tick
like flocks of birds
disturbed by change
and wind for wings.
Give me peace
and silent mull
for thoughts
like winter wine,
simmering
and warmed.
Give me all
you have
to spare
so I may save
the moments,
snatching songs
in these quiet
corridors.
Give me,
more.

We forget abandoned days and midnight wheels
turned on endless paths of spin and twist
We were in ecstasy of spiraled youth
with feet that dared to leap above
when hearts refused to stop and check
when souls entwined without rebuff
and now our patterned tattoo heels crack
and click for hours to fall away.
Like dancefloor ice and broken glass;
dust-brushing memories aftermorn -
such barefoot nights, ending now.
Please, keep up your show and tell
to all of us, who cannot dance
but nonetheless remember well.

I want
to write
I really do.
But tonight
it doesn’t feel
quite right.

I want
to speak of her,
hair blown
like faerie breath,
brushing cusp
of summer air.

I want
to tell you -
the bees
were out today,
saluting
stretching
sun.

Sadly I must
leave this
for another
day.

Stop reading now.
This poem is not for you.
It’s for someone else -
someone close,
someone who goes
behind the meaning
of these words.
Still here?
I thought you’d stopped.
Well maybe you and me
could talk another time?
There’s nothing here
for you today -
for you that feels,
for you that walks
along the lines.
Please - leave now.
I need to be
alone.

He is grinning,
Like a coldwax peach
Curled and constant,
On guard like a twisted
Forever-slept dog
Or a sleepover sigh
Echoing daydream
Stilted night.
They’ll be
No melting of this
Strange wax though,
No turn that breaks
The seal of time
Stood high upon
His rough hewn
Armature.
He grins,
Because of will of us
Who traipse to watch,
Along the path
That never wavers,
That never arcs
Like aspic oxbow
Frozen flow.
A thousand, thousand
Footsteps seek and feel
With tread and weary romp
Of seeded needs.
All buried deep
He holds his poise
Then contemplates
Why it is that he alone,
Should be the one
Who smiles.

He sends her blue horses
On the reins of a smile
His love for her riding
On the backs of the miles
He sends her blue horses
They run from heart to soul
Across the great divide
Branding union of whole
Where stallions race
To sacred lover’s place
And heartbeats rise in mist
And horizon kisses sky.
He sends her blue horses -
But only she knows why.

Don’t tell me
what you want
me to say,
or show me
what you want
me to see.
Don’t mark
the path
that I’m
not on,
or ask
what you
already
know.
Have you
forgotton
to remember?
I’m not that
dumb.

Bless these guys.
It’s almost like
reality is not enough.
Like glass lensed auteurs,
whose life just has to be seen
through mechanical eyes -
selecting and zooming
then editing the view.
No margin for error or surprise
in captured moments held
in satisfied frame,
in control of all they feel.
Neatly filing happiness
with f-stop calibration,
they can’t tell you
how wonderful something is
but they can show you
the photograph.

For the man who pushed my daughter out of the way
with his pumped up lens…

Don’t stop,
and don’t look back.
Every day has possibilities
for something new, something majestic
amongst the drudgery - a shining hope
glistening with flare of optimism’s flame
burning like magnified sun.

I was thinking
about Neruda and Rumi
and all these other folks
who I’ve never read.
Feel like such a phony -
I must read more
before I’m dead.

This house is just too small
For all these knick-knack memories
Stuffed in crevices and laid out
Like lingering refugees on the floor.
This junk we keep for old time’s sake,
This baggage piled but never sorted
Everywhere a story, everywhere a tale
And all those secrets never told.
It’s time we got this place
Cleared out, done up, and sold.
Let’s do it now, before
we grow too old.

The shoots are out and blood feels flow
Of inner tide and undertow. The sun,
Alert to season’s bow, pulls chord
Of cloud-winged fanfare call,
To signal start of this -
A most extraordinary
Of shows.

You know what?
You were really
cool today.
And as they say;
“the coolest ones.
are those that
do not know”
I was suitably
impressed
with the way
you handled
yourself.
So cool,
so confident,
so right.
Like a tall man,
humble amongst
infants.
Like an icecube,
holding court
in melting
snow.

The night draws in the blanks
The day has left behind.
For troubled hearts like ours
That pine for rest through sleep
And soul becalmed below
The unprimed stars.
This healing shroud reveals,
The eventide balm that soothes
Us, bruised beneath the satin flags
Of sky like whispering waves -
To moon, upon, unseen, unbound.
Urging flight above the confines -
The brutish hold of gravity,
defied.

Astrophe was responsible for the end of the world -
A problem for Amaran who was sailing the globe.
Then there was Alogue who wrote it all down
And Hode of course, painting pictures for all.
Next came Holic, preaching holiness and peace
To Erpillar and Egory dividing lines from his book.
Kneeling below old Hedral’s cloistered beams
Harsis quietly waits for inspiration of heart
Behind quick witted Apult (the first to arrive)
And philosopher Ching, with Alyst in tow.
All purring vainly, that THEY were the ones
Who started it all.

Hello and sorry.
We havn’t spoken lately have we?
I’ve been too busy being selfish
digging around in my own sodden mine,
not thinking about you and things
you are also looking for.
It’s very difficult you see.
Sometimes, I just have to go
into myself, burrowing through
the lumps and bumps - digging
beneath my own world.
You know what?
The very next words
will be just for
you.

I can’t
decide if you are mine
or happenstance that falls
like bonfired leaves
on unsuspecting
souls like me.
I can’t
explain.
This grand design,
this torch you hold
that shines and warms
my heart, like …
wintered fairground rides
in turning sun, awake
and overjoyed
to be alive.
I can’t
ignore your
beacon reach
that tugs my soul -
swaying colour greyed,
from numb of age
to weight of days.
I can’t
exist without
the growth and flow
of you, of all you are,
and may become.
I simply can’t
deny this love I feel.
I can’t, I can’t,
I can’t.

My head is a palace of song
Where sleepy kings and families
Do lie and wait for melodies
That raise the slumbered heart
And teach the dance of life itself.
My head is a golden opera
Where Divas sing of passion
Of life’s regret and tragedy
And grand style dramas played
To dressed coat balconies.
My head is a cathederal cave,
Explored by none but bats and stalagtites,
And darkened echoes that call for me
To strike a match and read scribblings
Of singers and songs, of dances over flame.
I hear this music, but wait …
For stone ochred harmony in the night,
For feeling wind sighing against the walls,
For determined tone through maze of souls.
All resolved in lone-voiced melody, arpeggio blown
Into the nothingness - singular, beautiful, pure.
I am waiting for god’s wistful call.

They, were so happy
layed out on my bed.
Toe to toe, and length
to length. Ribbed ones
pleased, to be with
partners, previously
lost to wash of fate.
Rejoiced in commune
of conditioned skin,
embracing friends and
kin. Now untangled from
the sorry state that they
were in. I watched couples
sort themselves - into
groupings, and those that
shouted, got down with
those, that didn’t care.
Fingering threads, like a
passion blinded creature
fumbling and pawing his
way, I watched this orgy
of togetherness and am
hereby ashamed to say -
that I, joined in.

We used
to visit often,
and take a sip
from this cold, clear pool.
But now it tastes different -
like a stilled pond where mudfish play,
where every day they battle and stir the clay
just to cloud the sweetness of our stay.
Maybe we should wait until they settle down,
await return of flow that takes away the earthen taste.
But on the other hand, maybe there are springs
and brooks beyond this place we know so well?
Perhaps we should at least, walk on a bit
and take a look.

I’d prefer to be seated
when you give me the news.
Is that O.K? I know it’s coming,
I’ve seen the signs you see -
the struggled smiles,
the cutting sighs,
the hunch of compromise.
Just so you know,
it wasn’t that I didn’t
care or try, it was more a case
of feeling paralysed.
I knew full well of my neglect -
the wonderful you I did forget
whilst focussed on the wanderful me.
Oh how vain, to think alone like that
not to reckon on a more co-operative life.
To rush ahead ignoring my second heart
that sang, then spoke, then whispered
but now is quietened by dulled regret.
And yes, this is all my fault and I know,
it’s time to come to terms with you,
who thinks of ending things,
whilst I prefer to sit.

Staring at this blinking curse,
I don’t much feel like writing tonight.
But still I’m pushed and pulled,
by what is now habitual.
This is a mad obsession,
that has chosen me,
Before, I was ordinary -
not enslaved by this … poetry.
Just one more line, one more thought,
One more punctuated night, to drive
the nagging demons from my mind,
then I can rest in peace - forgetting
poems that are never, quite right.

Afterwards.
Breathing more,
tired bones re-aligned
from hunched disposition.
Inside, the curl of change
like snapping chains
and knots untied -
teased threads undone,
winter ribbons
frayed by afterwind.
In knowing
all is even now -
no fractured sleep
or shuddered night
to steal the soul,
pour freedom’s gold
in leaden mould.
Now gone choked days,
and shutter eye nights
forgotten mutterings,
of chipped-cog cries,
all but silenced now.
Through defiant eyes,
stare straight on
past tense, past all -
see your toils spent
in preparation,
for this event.

Stitch me,
like a badge -
line me up like a label
on your sleeve.

Carry me like
mother’s day flowers,
arranged and parading life
and love for all to see.

Let me, cling like dust
to the weave and fold of you,
raised against your thread and hold.
Upon the arms of we.

Just for a moment,
we were young again.
Back below the teenage sheets,
drinking wine from cracked cups,
overflowed with confidence
in awe, of our togetherness.

Just for a moment …
we were unbeatable -
forgetting hours and duty
beholden of ordinary folk.
Intoxicated, like circling moths
chasing torchlight in the dark.

Just for a moment,
we were cradled and held
like old spoons in a drawer,
rattled silvered skins, but bold -
just wanting to stay together,
in love forever where we lay.

And then, we slept.

I’m an amazing drunk, but rather average when I’m sober.
For it is only the warming hold of alcohol that makes me feel so bold.
From timid to terrific in a few spirited gulps of secret fuel.
Then, I become strong - able to silence rooms with strange discourse
and amazing tricks with cocktail sticks.
Incredible! Such … courage, such bravery -
all poured from a bottle of ferment.
From start to closing time I’m always first
to fall over on the finish line.
Superpowered - that’s me!
Able to trip kerbstones in a single bound —
‘Look, down in the gutter,’ ‘Is it a rat?’ ‘Is it a drain?’
‘No! it’s … Superdrunk!’ ”

Hell, I can even talk out of my arse
sometimes.

Bear the ills of weary world,
Know the creep of quiet rage,
Feel the smudge of youth to old,
And smooth the grain of age.
Carry high past ways of youth,
Raise smile-worn weathered flag,
To shoulderhold the uncouth gale,
And navigate the rocky crags.
Know well this turn of time -
Hold each minute like a tiny jewel.
Begin again the spring and wind,
Then win prize of age’s tired duel.

Our joy awoke
and drank
the world in one.
Shared the air
with lungs like
unfurling wings,
sending heartbeat
cries around
the world.
Nestled and rolled,
curling like paper
handmade
by caring souls.
But strong,
like a wild foal
already tall
in utterance
of love.

(For Jared Daniel).

Let us talk
about the stars,
and where we fit within
the vista of being.
In which, we go naked -
skinnydipping existance
diving deep
for miraged pearls
in the sea
of who we are.
Let us close our eyes
and dream
of other things,
of happenstance beyond
the dull thud,
the daily numb
of common ways.
Let us meditate
on awakening.
Let us reel-in
the swirling cosmos,
hold its beauty
like snowdust
in our hands,
raise the soma
of life itself
to our lips,
and whisper.
Let us …
understand.

Somewhere,
there is a template.
A way of doing,
tested and tried,
laid out neatly
for people like us.
A blueprint showing
how to tackle situations
and tricky circumstance
thrown in our way.
There must be an overlay.
Mappped against the day -
scribbled with marks,
showing at least
the edges or the corners
pointing out measurements
of the challenges we face.
But, where is this process?
Where is this mislaid key
prising the locks
of confusion,
and knowing
our next
mistake?

Ask your friends,
maybe they will know.

Is he a man?
Or is he a figment?
Like the glint in a raindrop falling
from the lost tail of a speeding satellite?
He soars - acres high, up, above crown of land
like a proud beekeeper ushering safe return
of eve-time honey dance in costumed night.
Us, lost in starmist now beaconed through
to dusk-smudged earth below his subtle touch
that reaches dust, of mortal ground.
Is he a man? A spirit? A dream?
Who knows this truth but he,
who has power to roll tides,
to move minds of lunatic or child.
Even calm midnight doubt of poets
holding shadows back to see his glow
that steals away the clumsy thump of fate.
This hero’s light! It illuminates,
it shows us footholds in the night.
He is all, to all that seek
to know.

Away palid sirens
And playground harpies
That tease and clutch
Your unworn soul.
Begone such cruel bringers
Of growth’s nag and poke
And innocence ground
In circumstance beyond.
Forget their shrill voiced
Cries and winsome pangs
And crack’d tears -
And shudderings of age.
Be strong, my quiet one
Though humble and bruised
Still, like a first fallen pear
Brave in dawn-lost day.
You give wind to us
Amidst doubter’s lull
Becalmed by spite
But pushed along.

He liked aubergines.
Not just for the taste -
but also for their look and shape
like silk bells stroked by moonlight
in extacious growth.
He loved their colour too
like the edges of neon in rain
or passion in the summer dusk.
Curved like a marble womb
in the palm of his hand.
Yes, he liked aubergines,
and so do I.

Like distant slide
from crown of mountain slip
into very pit of who I am.
Here is vertigo for cliff-edged
hearts like yours that tip-toe
ankle winds.

There,
clutching gravity’s stall
of bloodstream rush,
like freshwater dashed in magnet dance
you move as particles
swirling toward the iron lips
of polar sea.

Through permafrost
and frozen root, gulley cut
and porous bed - the centre
to the core, traveling deep
within sediment soul,
and onto icepools
that only you
can thaw.

I crave soft-armed
cradle of you, holding
us dispersed on froth
of season’s roll.
You know so well
how to raise our
stopdrift souls,
lift eyes above
the cold horizon.
Like a puppeteer
placing strings -
upon his things,
with twist of wire
and raise of armiture.
Us; the shorebound
scarred and dry.
Tattered fabric
jellyfish marooned
at the bottom
of a box festooned
and waiting,
for a show
of tide.

I got in the car,

and he said to me;

“Do you believe in infinity?”

We headed off as he grinned in glee,

and drove a thousand miles per hour

down a one-way street.

Sometimes,
my body is distinct from my mind.
Like a distant robot operating
on boot sector instinct.
There I am, stretching for a drink,
but thinking not of reach or grip
just seeing glass and wine.
Or then, I’m keying the lock
but thinking of home inside
not oiled parts and traffic grime.

Odd that.

Time is the leak you cannot fix
Seeping over meniscus edge
Like muddied ice in stubborn push
Slowly notching marks of us.
Plucked like frets and string
Scratch-scretched and resonating
As waves that flow through sky
In search for sands of you and I.
Shorter than a newborn’s thumb
Curled and clutched like tiger frond
Mewed to world and catching dew
Time falls slow on me and you.

Where are you chickjesus?
Not washed away I hope
by flood of life
and death like dust
on surly breath
over unkind seas.
You once awakened me,
turned driftwood
into useful thoughts
took clay of you and I
and sculpted we.
I hope for you
in the swell
of the cosmos -
are you still looking
for butterfly wings
on the shore?

The sky is taunting us
Spreading its muddy fleece
Smothering the shoots and spurs
That call to sun.
One minute overjoyed
In the glow of spring
But then, snatched -
Like a mistaken banquet guest.
Why, oh why
this grinding pause?
This reckoning of season sums
Beyond patient warm and blue
Greying the clarity of hue -
Our cravings for rebirthed sun
Like cries from fallen souls
With weathered flags and so much need.
So much wanting, so much desire.
All, waiting to start again.

Begone
this stab through skin
and blood towed heart.
This nagging spike of doubt
that strikes and cracks
the gentle well.

It screeches
like cocktail spite
through quiet now unsteady calm,
Scratching edges, stealing entrance
to the wonderful secrets
that are you.

One good eye
Is better than the other
He sees much more
Than the lazy one.

One good eye
Works harder than his brother
Not seeing glint
Beyond the squint
of sun.

One good eye
Gazing further,
Sees futures played
Not tired man I know.

One good eye, and I
A friend allied -
Scribbling details
Of his battle not yet won.

Beware of engines,
Say the men of oil and dust
Working for their fathers,
Sons, before a heritage of trust.

Speaking heat and night of foundry bed,
Telling black and white of early call,
Cathedral spired beyond the fires -
Raising chalice cast from iron trust.

To worshiped stitch of boilerplate
To lathe contented steel - not men,
All bowed before a final wailed hoot -
Not thinking of their labour lost
Or industry not yet turned to rust.

Tell me how
to make the leap,
the hop from here
to where I want to be.
Show me how
to arc my thoughts
to someplace
new.

Help me
scale the hurdles,
jump the fences,
cut the bindings -
banish gravity!
And I promise,
I’ll move closer
to the island
that is
you.

I was thinking about you
All your things in readiness
Held in a drawstring bag
Clutched like pearl and trove
in netted treasure sack.
You, looking so … little
And scared in the blue
Of losing cool and shine
Of forgetting who you are
At the mercy of cold hands
Lying passive and waiting -
How like a fish jumped
Into strange waters!
Minutes rising, countdown’s pull,
Of meeting bloodied dark
Of growing fate through stir
And current that tugs and calls
Like black queen crawfish
Moving in a mystery game.
How cruel such creatures are
That make me think of you,
Sifting the night sounds
Tossing and turning but not moving
Stilled beneath cutting sheets
Of ripple click and midnight tuck
Of care that feels like harm,
Pin-dropped cold in the pool
And drifting, where no-one knows.
But yet, I think of you
And time rushes as if water
Flowing free the crusted hold
A return to whom you know
In joy of being - of belonging
Back to friendship’s spoils
And the untethered laughter
Of good times swirling endlessly
Like unhooked river trout
Playing in whitewater smile.
I was thinking about you, and know
You will race the stream again.

This one’s for the quiet ones,
The ones who sit and wait -
The people leaning at the back
Depended on to take the slack.
This one’s for the mild souls,
The some who stir no wave -
The some preferring calm
To seas not yet as plotted brave.
To reticent hearts, to those
That softly speak - go prideful
In hushed guile and gentle leap,
Over paths on which you seek.

Finally we find more than words
And they sing like wineglass bells
Beneath the cold stoke of night
That calls our circumvented soul
Deep as moss, high as swallow call
Like wistful sighs in the steamroom
Or a child’s lonely cry in the mall
Buoyed against our wanderings
More than tone, more than sound
Your voice alone was waiting
With such wisdom to be heard.

Goddamn freaks!
What gives them the right
to be more enlightened than me?
I’ve paid my dues to humble servitude
and non-dyed collar platitudes.
Their cheesecloth talk and cosmic hop
is mere thrift sale Buddhist eclectic fop.
Arrrrrgh! Such positivism drives me crazy!
Through bleary nights and an empty glass
That’s where you’ll find the promised way
From bar-stool muse to sucker fool blues
In one queasy step - right foot tripping left
Through the urinated alley that is life.
It IS easy - just stumble over here,
and buy another beer.

Please know that yours is not a lost cause.
You will sidestep these horrid, barren gulleys
These concerns ascending though purity’s tears
From here, you will climb still further
Up, through the mist toward sky’s veil
Where some have fallen, and some have paused
Amongst stalagmites chiselled by unkind wind
You will smile at ancient lichen etched in quartz
You will face cold stone’s grimace and find anchor
Beyond knowing and the known, beyond today
Beyond tomorrow and life’s tremulous hold.
There is always the memory of you.

Just a quickie,
nothing meaningful.
Us, mutually together
for a moment or two.
Just you and I, sharing
the company of words,
but craving more than
a one line stand.

Wiring crossed and timing slow
Confused and dumb with protocols
Of socketblocks and battery slack
One inch forward - ten feet back.
An odd-sock day of coffee stains
And soapy eyes and missing calls
From breakfast spills on muddy shoes
To milk that turns through needled toes.
A scrabble round for peace of mind
From late return of bills unpaid
To black night search for blue-ink books
And here now lost in overflow
Running, from my worried looks.